The Tragedy of Multiculturalism

It was true in 1991, and it is in 2004.

Though the educational establishment would rather die than admit it, multiculturalism is a desperate -- and surely self-defeating -- strategy for coping with the educational deficiencies, and associated social pathologies, of young blacks.

There! Somebody finally said it.

Multiculturalism is nothing more, nor less, than the successor to bussing, outcome based education and affirmative action -- with even more insidious side effects.

The funny thing is that the WSJ is one of the biggest indirect supporters of multiculturalism through its unwavering support of unending mass levels of immigration, and seeming joy it takes in demonizing other conservatives who dare disagree with them on this issue.

Yes, I know that immigrants are not responsible for the hideous ideology of multiculturalism; that like most bad policies comes from the minds of elitist leftwing whites. But it makes little sense to expect a roll-back in ideologies championed by these elitists if we keep importing in mass numbers future voters who vote for the politicians who put things like multiculturalism into place. And I'm not saying that immigrants directly favor MC, but they do indirectly every time they vote for a liberal politician. Its no different than how all of those Kerry voters, be they white, black, or latino, who voted directly against gay marriage via ballot initiatives turned around and indirectly supported gay marriages by voting for Kerry.

Good article.

Now his brat defames our Defense Sec.

Very interesting observation, thanks!

Multi-culturalism is our future... unless the dominant culture takes steps to preserve itself. Otherwise, majorities will shift and rule in their time. It is the way of the world.

Liberal Democracy vs. Transnational Progressivism: The Future of the Ideological Civil War Within the West.

The key concepts of transnational progressivism could be described as follows:

(1) The ascribed group over the individual citizen. The key political unit is not the individual citizen, who forms voluntary associations and works with fellow citizens regardless of race, sex, or national origin, but the ascriptive group (racial, ethnic, or gender) into which one is born. This emphasis on race, ethnicity, and gender leads to group consciousness and a deemphasis of the individual's capacity for choice and for transcendence of ascriptive categories, joining with others beyond the confines of social class, tribe, and gender to create a cohesive nation. ^{Immigration & The American Future}

(2) A dichotomy of groups: Oppressor vs. victim groups, with immigrant groups designated as victims. Influenced (however indirectly) by the Hegelian Marxist thinking associated with the Italian writer Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) and the Central European theorists known as the Frankfurt School, global progressives posit that throughout human history there are essentially two types of groups: the oppressor and the oppressed, the privileged and the marginalized. In the United States, oppressor groups would variously include white males, heterosexuals, and Anglos, whereas victim groups would include blacks, gays, Latinos (including obviously many immigrants), and women. ^{The Gramsci Factor by Chuck Morse - Sierra Times.com}^&^{Welcome to the Anti-Communitarian League homepage!}^&^{Why There is a Culture War- Policy Review, No. 104}^&^{Gramsci: A Method to the Madness}^&^{Gramsci And The US Body Politic}^&^{Gramsci's Grand Plan}^&^{Frankfurt School}^&^{Rigoberta Menchú: Liar}^&^Treason^&

Multicultural ideologists have incorporated this essentially Hegelian Marxist "privileged vs. marginalized" dichotomy into their theoretical framework. As political philosopher James Ceaser puts it, multiculturalism is not "multi" or concerned with many groups, but "binary," concerned with two groups, the hegemon (bad) and "the Other" (good) or the oppressor and the oppressed. Thus, in global progressive ideology, "equity" and "social justice" mean strengthening the position of the victim groups and weakening the position of oppressors-hence preferences for certain groups are justified. Accordingly, equality under law is replaced by legal preferences for traditionally victimized groups. In 1999, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission extended antidiscrimination protection under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to illegal immigrants. ^{City Journal Winter 2004 | The Illegal-Alien Crime Wave by Heather ...}^&^{City Journal Summer 2004 | The Immigrant Gang Plague by Heather ...}^&^{Race and Revolution}^&^{Rewarding Lawlessness} ^&^{Racism is Not the Problem: Why Martin Luther King Got It Half ...}^&^{Issues & Views: Increasing "Hate Crime" Punishment Violates ...} ^& ^{Harvard University Fellow Advocates "Abolishing the White Race"}^&^{Issues & Views: Using Racism as a Device}

(3) Group proportionalism as the goal of "fairness." Transnational progressivism assumes that "victim" groups should be represented in all professions roughly proportionate to their percentage of the population or, at least, of the local work force. Thus, if women make up 52 percent and Latinos make up 10 percent of the population, then 52 percent of all corporate executives, physicians, and insurance salesmen should be women and 10 percent should be Latinos. If not, there is a problem of "underrepresentation" or imbalance that must be rectified by government and civil society. Thomas Sowell recently wrote-as he has for several decades-that many Western intellectuals perpetually promote some version of "cosmic justice" or form of equality of result.8 The "group proportionalism" paradigm is pervasive in Western society: even the U.S. Park Service is concerned because 85 percent of all visitors to the nation's parks are white, although whites make up only 74 percent of the population. Therefore, the Park Service announced in 1998 that it was working on this "problem."9 ^{An FTAA Sneak Preview} ^&^{FTAA: Forced To Accept Aliens}^&^{What is Sensitivity Training}^&^{Psychic Iron Cage}

(4) The values of all dominant institutions to be changed to reflect the perspectives of the victim groups. Transnational progressives in the United States (and elsewhere) insist that it is not enough to have proportional representation of minorities (including immigrants, legal and illegal) at all levels in major institutions of society (corporations, places of worship, universities, armed forces) if these institutions continue to reflect a "white Anglo male culture and world view." Ethnic and linguistic minorities have different ways of viewing the world, they say, and these minorities' values and cultures must be respected and represented within these institutions. At a 1998 U.S. Department of Education conference promoting bilingual education, SUNY professor Joel Spring declared, "We must use multiculturalism and multilingualism to change the dominant culture of the United States." He noted, for example, that unlike Anglo culture, Latino culture is "warm" and would not promote harsh disciplinary measures in the schools.10 ^{Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt: Toward a Secular ...}^&^{Multiculturalism and Marxism}

(5) The Demographic Imperative. The demographic imperative tells us that major demographic changes are occurring in the United States as millions of new immigrants from non- Western cultures and their children enter American life in record numbers. At the same time, the global interdependence of the world's peoples and the transnational connections among them will increase. All of these changes render the traditional paradigm of American nationhood obsolete. That traditional paradigm based on individual rights, majority rule, national sovereignty, citizenship, and the assimilation of immigrants into an existing American civic culture is too narrow and must be changed into a system that promotes "diversity," defined, in the end, as group proportionalism. ^{Western Civilization Against Itself}^&^{New Mexico Professor Advocates Secession for Southwest}

(6) The redefinition of democracy and "democratic ideals." Since Fukayama's treatise, transnational progressives have been altering the definition of "democracy," from that of a system of majority rule among equal citizens to one of power sharing among ethnic groups composed of both citizens and non-citizens. For example, Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda wrote in the Atlantic Monthly in July 1995 that it is "undemocratic" for California to exclude noncitizens, specifically illegal aliens, from voting. Former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) general counsel Alexander Aleinikoff, declaring that "[we] live in a post-assimilationist age," asserted that majority preferences simply "reflect the norms and cultures of dominant groups" (as opposed to the norms and cultures of "feminists and people of color").11 James Banks, one of American education's leading textbook writers, noted in 1994 that "to create an authentic democratic Unum with moral authority and perceived legitimacy the pluribus (diverse peoples) must negotiate and share power."12 In effect, Banks said, existing American liberal democracy is not quite authentic; real democracy is yet to be created. It will come when the different "peoples" or groups that live within America "share power" as groups.

(7) Deconstruction of national narratives and national symbols. Transnational progressives have focused on traditional narratives and national symbols of Western democratic nation-states, questioning union and nationhood itself. In October 2000, the British governmentsponsored Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain issued a report that denounced the concept of "Britishness" as having "systemic . . . racist connotations." The Commission, chaired by Labour life peer Lord Parekh, declared that instead of defining itself as a nation, the UK should be considered a "community of communities." One member of the Commission explained that the members found the concepts of "Britain" and "nation" troubling. The purpose of the Commission's report, according to the chairman Professor Parekh, was to "shape and restructure the consciousness of our citizens." The report declared that Britain should be formally "recognized as a multi-cultural society" whose history needed to be "revised, rethought, or jettisoned."13

^{The Claremont Institute: The Cost of Ignorance}^&^{Historical illiteracy abounds}^&^{National Constitution Center: New Survey Shows Wide Gap Between ...}^&^{Senate Panel Hears that Ignorance of U.S. History Poses Major Security Threat}^&^{Only half would vote for Constitution} ^& ^{Albert Burns -- Historical Illiteracy & Antonio Gramsci}^&^{the deliberate dumbing down of america}^&^{Frivolous Courses Pervasive at Top American Colleges}^&^{Terrorists Find Allies on Campus}^&^{Marine Shouted Down at UNLV} ^& ^{American Flag Banned on Campuses Across the Nation}^&^{ACTA: American Council of Trustees and Alumni}^&^{The Intellectual Origins Of America-Bashing by Lee Harris - Policy ...}^&^{FrontPage magazine.com :: Battling Bias in Academia by Joseph ...}^&^{Book Review: Why the Left Hates America}^&^{Who Will Defend American Values?}^&^{How Textbooks Distort American History}

In the United States in the mid-1990s, the proposed "National History Standards," reflecting the marked influence of multiculturalism among historians in the nation's universities, recommended altering the traditional narrative of the United States. Instead of emphasizing the story of European settlers, American civilization would be redefined as a "convergence" of three civilizations-Amerindian, West African, and European-the bases of a hybrid American multiculture. Even though the National History Standards were ultimately rejected, this core multicultural concept that that United States is not primarily the creation of Western civilization, but the result of a "Great Convergence" of "three worlds" has become the dominant paradigm in American public schools. ^{The Multicultural Theocracy: An Interview With Paul Gottfried}^&^{The Relentless Assault of 'Multiculturalism'}

In Israel, adversary intellectuals have attacked the Zionist narrative. A "post-Zionist" intelligentsia has proposed that Israel consider itself multicultural and deconstruct its identity as a Jewish state. Tom Bethell has pointed out that in the mid-1990s the official appointed to revise Israel's history curriculum used media interviews to compare the Israeli armed forces to the SS and Orthodox Jewish youth to the Hitler Youth. A new code of ethics for the Israel Defense Forces eliminated all references to the "land of Israel," the "Jewish state," and the "Jewish people," and, instead, referred only to "democracy." Even Israeli foreign minister Simon Peres sounded the post-Zionist trumpet in his 1993 book, The New Middle East, where he wrote that "we do not need to reinforce sovereignty, but rather to strengthen the position of humankind." He called for an "ultranational identity," saying that "particularist nationalism is fading and the idea of a 'citizen of the world' is taking hold. . . . Our ultimate goal is the creation of a regional community of nations, with a common market and elected centralized bodies," a type of Middle Eastern EU.14

(8) Promotion of the concept of postnational citizenship. "Can advocates of postnational citizenship ultimately succeed in decoupling the concept of citizenship from the nation-state in prevailing political thought?" asks Rutgers Law Professor Linda Bosniak.15 An increasing number of international law professors throughout the West are arguing that citizenship should be denationalized. Invoking concepts such as inclusion, social justice, democratic engagement, and human rights, they argue for transnational citizenship, postnational citizenship, or sometimes global citizenship embedded in international human rights accords and "evolving" forms of transnational arrangements. These theorists insist that national citizenship should not be "privileged" at the expense of postnational, multiple, and pluralized forms of citizenship identities. For example, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, under the leadership of its president, Jessica Tuchman Mathews, has published a series of books in the past few years "challenging traditional understandings of belonging and membership" in nation-states and "rethinking the meaning of citizenship."16 Although couched in the ostensibly neutral language of social science, these essays from scholars from Germany, Britain, Canada, and France, as well as the United States, argue for new, transnational forms of citizenship as a normative good. ^{"America's Border: Who Left the Door Open?"}

(9) The idea of transnationalism as a major conceptual tool. The theory of transnationalism promises to be for the first decade of the twenty-first century what multiculturalism was for the last decade of the twentieth century. In a certain sense, transnationalism is the next stage of multicultural ideology-it is multiculturalism with a global face. Like multiculturalism, transnationalism is a concept that provides elites with both an empirical tool (a plausible analysis of what is) and an ideological framework (a vision of what should be). Transnational advocates argue that globalization requires some form of transnational "global governance" because they believe that the nation-state and the idea of national citizenship are ill suited to deal with the global problems of the future. Academic and public policy conferences today are filled with discussions of "transnational organizations," "transnational actors," "transnational migrants," "transnational jurisprudence," and "transnational citizenship," just as in the 1990s they were replete with references to multiculturalism in education, citizenship, literature, and law. ^{Can Globalism Amend Our Constitution? -- Phyllis Schlafly Aug. 13 ...}^&^{Bipartisan Border Betrayal}^&^{The & Immigration Conspiracy}^&^{Socialist Scholars Call for Dismantling of US Constitution in NYC}^&^{Lawyer Indicted for Aiding Terrorists Becomes Stanford Law 'Mentor ...}

Many of the same scholars who touted multiculturalism now herald the coming transnational age. Thus, at its August 1999 annual conference, "Transitions in World Societies," the same American Sociological Association (ASA) that promoted multiculturalism from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s featured transnationalism. Indeed, the ASA's then-president, Professor Alejandro Portes of Princeton University, argued that transnationalism is the wave of the future. He insisted that transnationalism, combined with large-scale immigration, would redefine the meaning of American citizenship. University of Chicago anthropologist Arjun Appadurai has suggested that the United States is in transition from being a "land of immigrants" to "one node in a postnational network of diasporas."17 ^{City Journal Spring 2002 | Do We Want Mexifornia? by Victor Davis ...}^&^{Abolishing Our Borders}

It is clear that arguments over globalization will dominate much of early twenty-first century public debate. The promotion of transnationalism as both an empirical and normative concept is an attempt to shape this crucial intellectual struggle over globalization. The adherents of transnationalism create a dichotomy. They imply that one is either in step with globalization, and thus with transnationalism and forward-looking thinking, or one is a backward antiglobalist.

Liberal democrats (who are internationalists and support free trade and market economics) must reply that this is a false dichotomy-that the critical argument is not between globalists and antiglobalists, but instead over the form Western global engagement should take in the coming decades: will it be transnationalist or internationalist?

Vindicating the Founders

Multi-culturalism is our future... unless the dominant culture takes steps to preserve itself. Otherwise, majorities will shift and rule in their time. It is the way of the world.

The rationale for these new policies is multiculturalism, an amorphous concept at war with Western culture. Components of the new program include placing non-Western cultures on a higher plane than the West; unrestricted immigration; a purging of Christianity from the public sphere for fear of offending members of minority religions; encouraging immigrants to continue speaking their native tongue in favor of the lingua franca; and special rights and protections for minority group members-such as hate speech laws and affirmative action-that come at the expense of the majority. "But once having accepted the imposed prerequisites for decency, European regions and nations cease to be distinctive. They become atomized imitations of each other, even if they are permitted to have different theme-park decors and to retain linguistic particularities," the author writes. To oppose any of the multiculturalist's aims, one runs the risk of being labeled a racist, xenophobe, or some other term denoting bigotry. The threat of such labels, and the ramifications that they bring with them, are enough to modify behavior. ^{Western Civilization Against Itself}

Multiculturalism is nothing more, nor less, than the successor to bussing, outcome based education and affirmative action -- with even more insidious side effects.
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Hey... as long as a 2nd grader knows how to put a condom on a cucumber... what the hell else could possibly matter???

Ain't life grand??? ;-))

The Tragedy of Multiculturism

You mean like this?

The only positive form of multiculturism is culinary. Like having a good Indian, Japanese, Thai, Turkish, etc, restaurant in every town. In fact, the only thing that most lefties know about that has any value is good food.

My sister in law is a radical, Marxist, sociology professor. She's the most intolerant, uptight, lefty bitch you could ever meet. But boy, can she whip up a gourmet meal. And of course, she knows the EXACT pronunciation of every ethnic dish and ingredient and will condescendingly correct you if you say it like a ignorant Amerikkkan. It's almost enough to ruin your appetite. I just bite my tongue and swallow hard.

Precisely! Bill Kristol, who has never seen fit to hear the sobering whine of gunfire, is a pathetic case of what is truly wrong with the conservative movement.

Many of our most ardent spokesmen have really no credibility at all other than what their mindless blather can instill in the masses. Look at Gingrich -- a craven egomaniac who simply could not manage success on any level.

Where are the rest of the Krauthammers? We desperately need you!

A good exercise on this subject is Sam Huntington's thesis on Immigration.(check Foreign Affairs Magazine on Google).

He submits that multi-culturalism will be the death-knell of the Republic. I tend to agree...and sooner, rather than later.

The only positive form of multiculturism is culinary

That is multi-ethnic which is kosher, kapish?

HOW RIGHT YOU ARE!!!!!!!!!!

We enjoy traditional American culinary delights in our house. Meat and potatoes, corn, BBQ beans and the like. No multiculturalized meals for us.

After eating multicultural dish one produces body sounds in foreign languages, right?

read later

It is clear that arguments over globalization will dominate much of early twenty-first century public debate. The promotion of transnationalism as both an empirical and normative concept is an attempt to shape this crucial intellectual struggle over globalization. The adherents of transnationalism create a dichotomy. They imply that one is either in step with globalization, and thus with transnationalism and forward-looking thinking, or one is a backward antiglobalist.

Very interesting. I got some of that from my multiculti prof, and wondered where in the h*ck she was coming from. That is, was it yet another baited question, waiting for unsuspecting students to clamor for closing borders and thus be branded racist, or for students to clamor for NAFTA and GATT style globalization, and thus be branded as lackeys for the multinational corporations and GHWB's New World Order? What would Medea Benjamin do?? ;-)