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Conversation Of The Week IV Fall 2011-2012: Situating
Communities Of Color In The United States: Critical
Reflections On The Paradigms Of Multiculturalism and
Diversity”
By Kenneth E. Bauzon, Ph.D.
Professor of Political Science
Saint Joseph‟s College – New York
Introduction
During the late 1980s and throughout the
1990s, an attempt to grapple with the
persistence of racism and the growth in
migrant presence in public
consciousness in the United States (US)
has led to a reconsideration of the
dominant assumptions of the leading
paradigms on racial and ethnic relations
in this country. This reconsideration has,
in some ways, contributed to the
reformulation of these assumptions in
some paradigms, and to retrenchment in
some others. This reconsideration is
particularly evident in academic works
but also in official pronouncements and
public discourse. Many of the questions
centered around whether or not race still
matters, e.g., as a basis for affirmative action; whether or not ethnicity matters, e.g., as a
basis for bilingual education; whether or not there is an intersection between race,
ethnicity, class, and gender; and what is the appropriate action to take given the situation,
assuming consensus exists on the meaning of this situation.
In the US, where the dominant ideological perspectives are of the conservative and liberal
orientation, the questions asked obviously pertain to specific content of policy rather than
to matters of justice and equity inherent in fundamental structures of society. It is no
wonder, therefore, that much of the policies coming out of the US Congress and various
departments and agencies of government presuppose no fundamental defect in the system
pertaining to the nature of race relations and to issues dearest to the heart of communities
of color. It will remain so until the dominant liberal and conservative paradigms shift in
the way in which they dictate the content, tone, and direction of the debate. The arena of
this debate is necessarily the public sphere where appeals to reason and emotion –
particularly by the practitioners of the two dominant paradigms -- are motivated by a
desire to validate existing privileges. But for whom these privileges accrue to is even a
Dr. Kenneth Bauzon, Ph.D.
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contested question. That is because answer to it inevitably determines how this American
“nation” is defined in terms of its inclusiveness or exclusiveness.
In one section that follows, the basic assumptions of the dominant conservative and
liberal paradigms would be critically analyzed. Some of their respective leading
proponents, along with their works, would be surveyed in an effort to understand their
attitudes, fears, and rationale for the kind of policies that they advocate. This will be
followed by another section dealing with an alternative paradigm, herein referred to as
structuralism, whose assumptions about the nature of society, its problems, and the
solutions proffered differ substantially if not radically from those of conservatism and
liberalism. To provide a context, however, a presentation of some demographic data –
principally from the Bureau of Census – is deemed appropriate.
I. The Demographic Background
This reconsideration coincides with the influx during the 1980s and 1990s of new
immigrants from around the globe but particularly from Spanish-speaking and Asian
countries, complemented by a surge from Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the Cold
War. As much as 44 per cent of immigrants during these decades came from Latin
America and the Caribbean, about 37 per cent came from Asia and nearly 15 per cent
from Europe. By the mid-1990s, as much as 8 per cent of the US population was
considered foreign-born. An overwhelming percentage, (nearly 75 per cent) of these
immigrants has settled in six states, namely: California, New York, Texas, Florida, New
Jersey, and Illinois. About 10 per cent of the newcomers are considered refugees from
different countries, about half of all legal entrants are women, and the flow of
undocumented (or illegal) aliens has been, for the same period, almost 30,000 annually.
The rate of growth in Hispanic American and Asian American population in the US,
based on Bureau of Census data, is particularly notable. From 1990 to 1999, the rate of
growth of the Asia-Pacific community was at 43 per cent to 10.8 million, while the
Hispanic population grew at, for the same period, 38.8 per cent to 31.3 million.
Meanwhile, the country‟s Caucasian population increased by 7.3 per cent to 224.6
million during the same period, and the Black population experienced a 13.8 growth rate
to 34.8 million. The Native American, including the Alaskan native population,
registered a growth rate of 15.5 per cent to 2.3 percent, constituting less than 1 per cent of
the total US population.
*Paper prepared for delivery at the “International Conference on Multiculturalism,
Nation-State and Ethnic Minorities in Canada, the United States and Australia,” held in
Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki-ken, Japan, December 9 to 11, 2000. Support for this project is
through a generous grant from the Japan Ministry of Education (Monbusho) through a
project on comparative multiculturalism in the United States, Canada, Japan, and
Australia, under the general direction of Dr. Tsuneo Ayabe, Josai International
University, Sakado-shi, Saitama-ken, Japan. Interpretations and factual errors are solely
the responsibility of the author. Subject to revision. Comments welcome. Please send all
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correspondence to Kenneth E. Bauzon, Department of Social Sciences, Saint Joseph’s
College, 245 Clinton Ave., Brooklyn, New York 11205. E-mail address:
II. The Dominant Paradigms: Conservatism and Liberalism
A. The Conservative Perspective
By looking at the facts and figures in the preceding sections, one may readily be tempted
to draw certain conclusions that would place one ethnic group or another in either a
favorable or an unfavorable light, depending on what perspective one takes. One such
perspective – drawn from the conservative tradition -- generally regards in a dim light
precisely the kind of immigration and demographic patterns herein narrated among
Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans. This perspective laments the apparent loss of
a uniquely American identity due to the presumed corrosive effect of the new migrants
(prominently Hispanics and Asians) coming in large numbers but who either fail or
refuse to assimilate. Representing this perspective is Peter Brimelow who, in his book
Alien Nation, notes that as much as two-thirds of immigrants to the US fail to
“assimilate” and fears that the US is in danger of being “overrun” by “brown-skinned
immigrants from Latin America and Asia.”1 Brimelow, himself a former Englishman
who currently serves as senior editor of Forbes magazine, advocates closing the gates of
immigration, albeit temporarily, in order to stem the tide of an otherwise uncontrollable
immigration and to enable the US to maintain its economic predominance, social
cohesion, and sense of selfhood.
The same themes are amplified by various other authors masquerading either as
irreputable experts on interracial and interethnic relations or as demagogic peter pans
whose nativistic appeals unfortunately attract a large number of unsophisticated readers
to their political agenda. Such catchy titles as Americans No More2 by Georgie Ann
Geyer, a career journalist; The Real American Dilemma3 by Jared Taylor and
associates, concurrently serving as staff officers of a conservative monthly publication
American Renaissance and who apparently profess no fear or reluctance in being
labeled as “racist”; and The Case Against Immigration4 by Roy Howard Beck, a
Washington-based editor of the conservative The Social Contract, all of which were
published within the last five years, are intended to elicit an emotional reaction or strike a
patriotic chord among those whom they consider “real Americans” against the inflow of
what Geyer condescendingly regards as “non-Americans.” Geyer predicts that the
1Alien Nation; Common Sense About America’s Immigration Disaster (New York:
Harperperennial Library, 1996). 2(New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1996), 352 pp.
3Jared Taylor, Samuel Francis, Philippe Rushton, Michael Levin, and Glayde Whitney, The Real
American Dilemma: Race, Immigration, and the Future of America (New York[?]: New Century
Books, 1998), 152 pp. 4The Case Against Immigration: The Moral, Economic, Social, and Environmental Reasons
for Reducing U.S. Immigration Back to Traditional Levels (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1996),
287 pp.
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economic stratification, the on-going process of multiculturalism, and the apparent lack
of moral consensus ensuing from the recent waves of immigration all would lead to a
crisis characterized by the “death of commitment to the whole [and] the weakening of the
citizenship bond.”
Taylor and associates, on the other, express alarm at the projected increase in population
by Asians, Hispanics, and blacks by year 2050; they believe that this increase will happen
at the expense of whites whose population is projected to drop from 74 per cent to 50 per
cent by the same year. Further, Taylor and associates explain with concern that “[w]ithin
54 years…, whites will be on the brink of becoming just one more racial minority. And
because whites are having so few children, they will be an old minority. Within just 34
years they will already account for less than half the population under age 18, but will be
three-quarters of the population over 65.”
For his part, Beck makes the case for the halting of immigration for the reasons that it
depresses wages, which leads, in turn, to the deterioration of communities, the
degradation of the environment, and the breakdown of families. Beck‟s simplistic logic
somehow suggests that immigration is a singularly more significant factor than corporate
greed, for instance, in the widening of gap between the rich and the poor in this country,
in the depression of wages among workers – especially in inner cities where blacks and
others at the bottom of the labor market are mostly affected, or in erosion of family
values. So important that even a significant segment of the membership of a supposedly
progressive environmental organization – the Sierra Club – has signed on to the idea of
immigration restrictions proposed along the lines outlined above. The rationale offered is
that the further influx of new immigrants would inevitably lead to an increase in
population levels that the environment would not be able to sustain. Consequently, Beck
argues the drastic curtailment of the current immigration flows to what he regards as the
“traditional levels” and that this argument is gradually gaining legitimacy and urgency
among whites.
One other work noted for its intellectual acumen and uncompromising assault on what is
labeled as the liberal-led “civil rights industry” is Dinesh D’Souza’s The End of
Racism: Principles for a Multiracial Society.5 In this book, D‟Souza argues a number
of important points including: a. black failure in US society is due not to racism but,
rather, to distinct cultural differences among peoples; b. therefore, race does not and
should not matter as basis for identity and public policy; c. the liberal crusade for
affirmative action serves only to stunt, rather than encourage, the progress of blacks and
other minorities in this country just as it fosters dependency on their part.6 In the end,
5(New York: Free Press, 1996), 724 pp.
6The denial of race and racism is a constant theme even among those who profess to be concerned
with the plight of immigrants. For instance, Linda Chavez, an executive officer of the Washington-based
Center for Equal Opportunity, argues that “[a]ssimilation – not race – is the issue and deserves more
attention and reinforcement than it currently receives in the public policy debate.” Chavez‟s organization
claims to be “the only think tank devoted exclusively to the promotion of equal opportunity and racial
harmony.” See her article “Assimilation Not About Race” (IC Idea of the Week) in
www.intellectualcapital.com/issues/96/0808/icidea.html. In reality, however, Chavez‟s euphemisms and
those of her organization, have the ultimate effect of throwing the fate of the blacks and other minorities, in
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however, D‟Souza‟s implications are that, if blacks and other minorities are poor, the
blame lies with their undesirable cultural traits and habits and not so much on social and
structural barriers that perpetuate racial and economic inequalities.
Politicians have taken up these same themes as a means of scoring points with the voters.
Pat Buchanan, a perennial presidential candidate in the Republican camp, has argued, one
may recall, for the construction of a fence quite literally along the US-Mexican border as
a deterrent to illegal migration from “south of the border.” In California, Proposition 187
was pushed for by the Republican Governor Pete Wilson for the purpose of denying
social services, e.g., health, education, and welfare, to undocumented aliens perceived to
be taking advantage of the generosity of the state. Mindful that this Proposition won by a
healthy margin of 20 per cent, Governor Wilson told the people of California that any
further expansion of the welfare system in his state would not be tolerated. In New York
City, what appears to be a concerted and systematic anti-immigrant drive is being carried
out by Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani targeting specifically the taxi drivers,
pushcart vendors, community gardeners, squeegee men/boys, messengers on bicycles,
and street corner- or subway-musicians, a large percentage of whom belong to the
migrant and/or underclass community. With his pampering of the police department,
Giuliani has significantly reduced the budget for the public schools, particularly funds for
after-school programs, at the same time that abuse by the overwhelmingly white police
establishment has escalated against the poor and people of color in the city. Elsewhere in
the country, the battle is being fought over whether to allow bi-lingual education or to
insist on English-only as medium of instruction and official communication. Already, 19
states have adopted an English-only legislation to preclude the use of state funds for
bilingual education and similar programs. There is little doubt that the language question
will continue to be a battleground between conservatives and advocates of
multiculturalism.
B. The Liberal Perspective
In 1908, a play debuted in Washington, D.C. with a title that would thereafter be used as
a metaphor for the US in the first quarter of the 20th
century and beyond. It was entitled
“The Melting Pot” written by an English Jew named Israel Zangwill. The central theme
of this play – reflecting the on-going influx of European immigrants and their aspirations
at that time – held the promise of assimilation into American life and to the ideals
democracy.
The term “assimilation” would thus play a central role in the elaboration of the
metaphor‟s meaning. One of the early attempts at defining the term was by Robert E.
Park and Ernest W. Burgess who, in their 1922 book, Introduction to the Science of
Sociology, wrote: “Assimilation is a process of interpenetration and fusion in which
persons and groups acquire the memories, sentiments, and attitudes of other persons or
groups, and, by sharing their experience and history, are incorporated with them in a
a Darwinian sense, to the mercy of the Adam Smith‟s Invisible Hand and let them survive – or perish – on
their own without affirmative action from government.
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common cultural life.”7 In a later refinement of this definition, Park appears to give
prominence to cultural behavior as when he regards as the measure of the success of the
assimilation process the attainment of “cultural solidarity” among peoples of diverse
racial background or cultural heritage in such a way that they can “get on in the country”
or that they may be able to “find a place in the community on the basis of… individual
merits without invidious or qualifying reference to… racial origin or to… cultural
inheritance.”8
An important underlying assumption in these definitions is that the racial and/or ethnic
background of citizen does not and should not matter, an assumption quite similar to the
conservative assumption explained in the above-section. The rationale for this is that the
categories or requirements of citizenship are both color blind and ethnic-neutral. As
Milton M. Gordon explains, racial groups and ethnic nationalities are “legally invisible.”
Because of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution,
Gordon explains, “the American political and legal system recognizes no distinction
among its citizens on grounds of race, religion, or national origin.”9 This is reinforced by
the principle of separation of church and state, through the Establishment clause in the
First Amendment, which precludes the state from endorsing one particular religion or
prevents citizens from freely exercising their religious beliefs.
As a process towards the successful construction of a unified political community,
Gordon specifies a number of essential requisites of assimilation that must be made
manifest among both native-born Americans and the new immigrants. The first of these is
a mutual recognition by all groups that each has a legitimate right to be in this country
and to pursue happiness to the extent allowed by law. Secondly, immigrants are expected
to acquire the necessary competence to function effectively in the workplace in order to
avail themselves of economic opportunities that may lawfully come along. Thirdly,
immigrants are further encouraged, indeed expected, to assume civic responsibility by
being law-abiding citizens or, better, being actively involved in the political process.
Lastly and most importantly, immigrants should always be conscious of their being
Americans and to accord primary loyalty to the US above their countries of origin or their
ethnic affiliations in a show of what others have regarded as “American nationalism.”10
In the course of the 20th
century, however, a confluence of historical events and existing
socio-political and economic realities conspired against the promise of assimilation and
betrayed the ideals of American democracy. This conspiracy has led to the persistence of
what Gunnar Myrdal has called the “American dilemma.” Myrdal explains that this
dilemma is “the ever-raging conflict between, on the one hand, the valuations preserved
on the general plane which we shall call the „American Creed‟, where the American
thinks, talks, and acts under the influence of high national and Christian precepts, and, on
the other hand, the valuations on specific planes of individual and group living, where
7(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1922), p. 735.
8“Assimilation, Social,” in Edwin R.A. Seligman and Alvin Johnson, eds., Encyclopedia of the
Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan Co., 1930), Vol. 2, p. 281. 9Assimilation in American Life; The Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 4. 10
Ibid. .
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personal and local interests; economic, social, and sexual jealousies; considerations of
community prestige and conformity; group prejudice against particular persons or types
of people; and all sorts of miscellaneous wants, impulses, and habits dominate his
outlook.”11
Wittingly or unwittingly, Myrdal„s characterization of the racial divide in this
country has contributed in more ways than is acknowledged in the framing of the social
problem almost wholly in terms of black and white. The consciousness that perhaps the
problem should be redefined to account for the ethnic diversity – and the problems
attendant to it – did not dawn until much later as shall be seen below.
In practical terms, social alienation, economic deprivation, and political
disenfranchisement continued to define the lot of the blacks in the US. Critics of
assimilation in the 1950s and 1960s from virtually all political persuasions pointed to
these as evidence that something needs to be done. From the right came the call to
reinforce and preserve “traditional” values and institutions that have long been the
hallmark of white -- and Protestant -- predominance in this society, and to do so through
the use of the political system‟s repressive mechanisms, if need be. From the left came
the revolutionary call to overturn the Establishment and supplant it with a more
egalitarian one. And, from the center came the urgent call to reform the system through
legislation, judicial action, and presidential initiatives alongside non-violent street
protests. It was this approach that gained the sympathy and support of white liberal
America in that it offered an alternative that was both non-threatening to the basic
institutions at the same time that it gave vent to moral indignation against the injustices of
society. From the centrist approach emerged the civil rights movement which, among
others, demanded that the government take affirmative steps to redress the social,
political, economic, and legal imbalances prevalent in the country.
An offshoot of the civil rights movement was the gradual appreciation of the problems of
non-black minorities. The founding of the National Association of Colored Peoples
(NAACP), while predominantly a black-led organization, nonetheless attempted to bridge
the gap between blacks, on one hand, and other minority communities, on the other. The
shared experience and aspirations of all minority groups was articulated by civil rights
leaders most prominently Martin Luther King, Jr. who was tireless in his call not only for
political and civil rights but also for a more inclusive, non-racial society. His famed “I
have a Dream” speech envisaged a society where the value of a person would be based
not on skin color but, rather, on character.
Despite the accomplishments of King and the civil rights movement, however, the
decades following the sixties witnessed persistent problems in inter-racial and inter-
ethnic relations in the country. The racial prejudices that accompanied black-white
relations are now being complicated by the persistence of demands on the part of the
other non-black minorities whose presence in this country can no longer be ignored. The
title of Michael Novak‟s book, The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics, reflects not only
the growing number but also the increasing political and social consciousness of these
11
An American Dilemma, The Negro in a White Nation (Vol. 1) (New York: McGraw-Hill
Book Co., 1964), p. lxx.
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minority communities.12
In articulating a critique of the policies of the white liberal
establishment, Novak complement‟s King‟s “dream” with what he refers to as the
correlative “ethnic dream.” “It is based on self-interest,” Novak writes, “and on the
solidarity of underdogs. It is a dream of the one inevitable, fundamental, indispensable
coalition: blacks and ethnic whites, shoulder-to-shoulder. It is a dream of frank and open
talk about the needs of each. Above all, honesty.”13
It was not unusual, therefore, that
Novak would christen the decade of the 1970s “The Seventies: Decade of the Ethnics”,
by entitling the lead chapter of his book as such.
True to Novak‟s characterization, the seventies inaugurated a growth of sorts not only of
ethnic cultural pride, e.g., ethnic-oriented parades, festivals, television programs, etc., but
also of academic enquiry into the nature of ethnicity. The publication of the compendium
Ethnicity: Theory and Experience, edited by two of the leading mainstream scholars,
Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan, signaled a new trend in the academe: the
establishment of ethnic studies. All of these developments point to one thing: ethnicity,
instead of being “melted in a pot” in a manner that transformed it from its original nature,
was reasserting itself and its originality was being affirmed by the pride engendered
among those who share it.
As a challenge to the basic assumptions of assimilation, ethnic revivalism found
intellectual and ideological support among prominent mainstream scholars, in addition to
those mentioned above. One such scholar was Horace M. Kallen, a sociologist, who has
consistently argued that it was unrealistic and unfair to expect the new immigrants to give
up their cultural and ethnic identity in exchange for admission into US society. He
proposed that national policy should, instead, “seek to provide conditions under which
[each] group might attain the cultural perfection that is proper to its kind.” 14
Another,
more contemporary scholar is Nathan Glazer. Glazer argues in his book We Are All
Multiculturalists Now that the debate is essentially over as to whether or not ethnicity is
here to stay.15
He concedes that members of so-called minority communities, especially
the new immigrants, reject the status as “hyphenated Americans.” He contends that
greater effort should be devoted to understanding, and then correcting, the failures that
continue to alienate blacks and the minority communities more conspicuously in such
areas as housing, employment, and education.
One such effort is offered by Orlando Patterson, another sociologist who suggests that
“liberal racialization,” or the tendency among liberal whites to view American life
through the racial lens, continues to inject racial bias in the relations between blacks and
whites.. Consequently, blacks, despite significant economic and educational strides they
have made since the end of the 1960s, continue to deprive blacks of a sense of power or
12
(New York: The Macmillan Co., 1971), 321 pp. 13
Ibid., p. 249. 14
As quoted in Peter D. Salins, Assimilation, American Style (New York: Basic Books, 1997), p.
45. Kallen‟s ideas may be found in one of his early works, Culture and Democracy in the United States
(New York: Boni and Liveright, 1924). 15
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), 192 pp.
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responsibility.16
It is in response to this that mainstream black leaders, including Jesse
Jackson , David Dinkins, and Shirley Chisholm have suggested a reorientation of the
original meaning of “melting pot” by suggesting alternative metaphors to more accurately
reflect the contemporary movement towards multiculturalism, e.g., “rainbow coalition”,
“gorgeous mosaic”, and “salad bowl”, respectively. In addition to defending the legacy of
the civil rights movement from right wing assault, e.g., the affirmative action program,
these leaders emphasize the necessity of ethnic coexistence and cooperation as well as
integration into the larger society while avoiding the pressures they believe are inherent
in assimilation towards abandonment of ethnic heritage and adoption of the ways and
manners of the dominant segment of the population.
III. The Structuralist Paradigm
The structuralist paradigm consciously rejects both conservative and liberal formulations
on race and ethnic relations in this country. Against the conservative view because it
perpetuates the “Blame the victim” syndrome for attributing lack of industry and moral
uprightness for the social and economic misery that has visited black and other
communities of color, and against the liberal view for assuming naively that more
integration, greater inclusiveness, and the mantra of diversity would suffice to blot out
the nefarious effects or racism. As Cornel West comments: “Both [perspectives] fail to
see that the presence and predicaments of black people [and, by extension, other
communities of color] are neither additions to nor defections from American life, but
rather constitutive elements of that life.”17
In positing the salience of race, the structuralist perspective aims to relate the experience
of communities of color in this country to definite features of what has been referred to as
the “American Apartheid” as well as to the structure of international relations – based on
the legacy of colonialism and on Cold War rationalizations – that have conditioned the
arrival into this country and the continuing presence of much of the peoples of color.18
The intrusion of race in the present discourse can neither be denied nor postponed even as
a recent survey by Gallup shows a widening gap in the perception of Black and White
Americans on a wide-ranging set of issues at the local community level.19
For instance,
this poll shows that only 36 per cent of Blacks feel that they are being treated the same
way as Whites in their local communities whereas nearly 75 per cent of Whites perceive
the opposite. If nothing else, this indicates that an overwhelming number of Whites do
not recognize the existence a problem among their Black counterparts, or between them
16
Please see his The Ordeal of Integration: Progress and Resentment in America’s “Racial”
Crisis (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint Press, 1997), 240 pp. 17
Please see his book, Race Matters (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1993), p. 3. 18
Please see Douglas S. Massey, with Nancy A. Denton, American Apartheid; Segregation and
the Making of the Underclass (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994), for a searing
indictment of poverty and racism in the US. 19
Please see Jack Ludwig, “Perceptions of Black and White Americans Continue to Diverge
Widely on Issues of Race Relations in the U.S.,” The Gallup Organization, Poll Releases (February 28,
2000), 21 pp.
10
and the Blacks. In another instance, significant gaps in perception also exist between
Blacks and Whites in terms of being treated less fairly in six different situations, as the
table below shows:
Blacks are Treated Less Fairly
Than Whites in Six Situations - 1999
Situations Blacks Whites Gap
On the job or at work 47 % 10 % 37 %
On public transportation 19 % 6 % 13 %
In neighborhood shops 35 % 13 % 22 %
In downtown malls or stores 46 % 15 % 31 %
In restaurants, bars, theaters 39 % 11 % 28 %
By police 64 % 30 % 34 %
______________________________________________________________
Source: The Gallup Organization, Poll Releases, February 28, 2000.
To confine the “American dilemma” (to borrow Myrdal‟s phrase) to discussions of race
matters at the perceptual level is to divert attention from the more fundamental problem,
i.e., lack of social justice and economic equity, among communities of color in this
country. As articulated by Mark Solomon in a recent publication on the history of Black
activism during the first half of the last century: “The pivotal issues then were neither
tactical nor sentimental; they involved the basic character of American society.
Capitalism‟s cornerstone was seen to have been laid by slavery and fortified by racism.
Therefore, the achievement of equality implied the ultimate transformation of the nation‟s
economic and social foundation.”20
Not surprisingly, among the early Black activists were of Caribbean birth who, with their
first-hand experience with the dynamics of colonialism in their respective countries of
origin, have sought to form an alliance with their US-born counterparts as well as with
White workers in a broad anti-imperialist and revolutionary movement. Prominent among
there Black activists was Marcus Garvey whose efforts were regarded as “an expression
of authentic national strivings” that would elevate the anti-racist struggle to a
revolutionary status indispensable to the working class‟ own success.21
During the post-World War II period, the Black revolutionary activists sought and found
a more inclusive alliance with White liberals in their common struggle against state
20
Please see his The Cry Was Unity: Communists and African Americans, 1917-1936
(Jackson, Miss.: University Press of Mississippi, 1998), p. xviii. 21
Please see Alan Wald, “National Liberation and Socialism” (a review essay), Against the
Current # 84, XIV, 6 (January/February 2000): 7.
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repression manifested as McCarthyism. The formation of this left-liberal alliance was
seen as “an open window of opportunity in which to successfully contest for the political,
civil and economic rights of those struggling under the yoke of colonialism and those
oppressed as national minorities in the West.”22
One notable trait of the post-World War II alliance was the growth in consciousness
about the importance of gender issues. In her book, Race Against Empire: Black
Americans and Anti-Colonialism, 1937-1957, Penny M. von Eschen writes that the
“1940s anti-colonialism represented a radical departure from the earlier gendered
language of, for example, Martin R. Delaney‟s consistent masculinist positing of Africa
as the fatherland and persistent invocations of the motherland.”23
Unfortunately, events attendant to the Cold War preempted what might have been a
sustained, solid left-liberal alliance that would carry over into the Civil Rights Movement
of the 1960s. But, as it turned out, the “race against empire,” (borrowing von Eschen‟s
phrase) became subordinated to or was victimized by the preoccupation with “internal
security” induced by the anti-communist hysteria and the competition for superiority with
the former Soviet Union, and driven underground by a violent conservative backlash
against the labor movement and its left-liberal allies. Black activist leaders like
sociologist W.E.B. DuBois, preacher-writer James Baldwin, and vocal artist Paul
Robeson were intimidated and jailed (in the case of DuBois and Robeson) and, in the
case of DuBois and Baldwin, virtually hounded out of the country into exile to Africa and
Europe, respectively, for no other reason than the fact that they stood for their political
beliefs on behalf of their fellow colored brethren and sisters.
Contemporarily, the structuralist perspective is kept alive by a broad coalition of
progressive forces representing not only the immigrant community but also by an array of
human rights, environmental, feminist, gay and lesbian, labor, indigenous, and clergy and
lay activists. This broad coalition comes in the wake of, and in reaction to, persistent
racism at times expressed through the practice of “racial profiling”24
among law
enforcement agencies, the persistent pattern of brutality which often brings out the beast
out of law enforcement agents,25
the mean-spiritedness of the criminal justice system,26
22
Please see Clarence Lang, “When Anti-Imperialism and Civil Rights Were in Vogue,” Against
the Current # 84, XIV, 6 (January/February 2000): 2 23
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 79. 24
On the issue of racial profiling, please see a special report prepared for the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) by David A. Harris, Driving While Black; Racial Profiling On Our Nation’s
Highways, An American Civil Liberties Union Special Report (June 1999), 31 pp. This is available online
at ACLU‟s website www.aclu.org/profiling/report/index.html. 25
In a 1998 report on the subject of police brutality in the US entitled United States of America:
Rights for All, London-based human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) states: “There is a
widespread and persistent problem of police brutality…. Thousands of individual complaints about police
abuse are reported each year…. Police officers have beaten and shot unresisting suspects; they have
misused batons, chemical sprays and electro-shock weapons…, people have been beaten, kicked, punched,
choked and shot by police officers, even when they posed no threat. The majority of victims have been
members of racial or ethnic minorities. Many people have died, many have been serious injured, many have
been deeply traumatized.” In an interview upon the release of this report, AI Secretary General Pierre Sane
explains the motivation behind the report. “The human rights situation in the United States is bad,” he
12
explains, “and our research shows it is getting worse. It is getting worse because there is a sort of warlike
mentality in this country. There is a war on crime, there is a war on drugs, there is a war on illegal
immigrants, there is a war on terrorism. Law enforcement agencies are given a lot of scope to deal with
these issues, which are presented as national threats. In a context like that, human rights are likely to be a
casualty.” Please see Dennis Bernstein and Larry Everest, “Cops that Maim and Kill; Amnesty
International Speaks Out on U.S. Police Brutality,” originally published in the January 1999 issue of Z
Magazine and available online at www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/jan99bernstein.htm.
The kind of casualty that Sane refers to above is illustrated most starkly by the case of Mumia Abu Jamal
whose 1982 trial was characterized by “lost” evidence, witness coercion and intimidation, failure to call
relevant witnesses, police and prosecutorial misconduct, inconsistency of evidence, use of what has been
ruled as illegal means to bar Black people from the jury, prohibition of Mumia from defending himself,
failure of the judge (i.e., Judge Albert Sabo) to abstain from the case even if he is a member of the Fraternal
Order of the Police, a party to the case, among others. Mumia‟s case has attracted international attention.
No less than the Pope has called for the sparing of his life. His supporters – including this writer – call for a
new trial free from the defects that accompanied the earlier one. Some websites that focus on Mumia‟s case
and where one may get updated information on his case are as follows: www.mumia2000.org, and
www.iacenter.org/mumia.htm.
26
According to the US government‟s own Bureau of Justice Statistics, Black males at 28.5 per cent are
more likely to go to prison than Hispanic males at 16 per cent, than White males at 4.4 per cent, or than all
males at 9 per cent, based on constant 1991 rates on first incarceration by age, race and Hispanic origin. On
another front, according to a prison watchdog group, the Washington-based Sentencing Project, beginning
in the mid-1970s the rate of incarceration in the US began rising so that by the 1980s, the rate has doubled
in relation to the rate of 110 inmates per 100,000 people for most of the past century. By the 1990s, the rate
had more than doubled 645 inmates per 100,000, which is six to ten times the rate in most European
countries: 100 per 100,000 in Great Britain, 55 per 100,000 in Norway and Greece, 37 per 100,000 in
Japan. By the start of the new millennium, the rate of incarceration in the US has reached a staggering 2
million, an overwhelming number of whom are people of color, mostly Blacks, almost all of whom poor.
An Editorial in the publication, In these Times, has described the expanding prison-industrial complex in
the US as “a scavenger enterprise feeding on social decay.” Please see its December 27, 1998 issue, p. 3.
In a press statement by the National Association of National Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), in
February 1999, lack of funding for the legal defense of the poor was singled out. In its statement, the
NACDL notes: “America‟s criminal justice system is beset with a fatal flaw: funding for the defense of the
indigent accused is so woefully inadequate that the adversary system – indeed the justice system itself – is
breaking down. As a result, justice has become an empty promise for all but the most wealthy in America.”
Please visit the NACDL website for more information at
http://209.70.38.3/public.nsf/newsreleases/99in001?opendocument.
Similarly, the watchdog group, Amnesty International, issued its own report on the US criminal justice
system, focusing on the link between race and the application of the death penalty. Entitled Killing With
Prejudice: Race and the Death Penalty in the USA, the report indicates the fact that “racial
discrimination, while more subtle than in the past, continues to play an equally deadly role in the US legal
system.” Further, the report shows overwhelming evidence that “the judicial system values white life over
black: defendants are far more likely to be executed for the murder of a white victim.” And, while it affirms
that prejudice is directed primarily against Blacks, discrimination is also rampant against “Latinos, Native
Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans and others.” For the text of this report, please visit the
Amnesty International website at: www.amnesty.org.
Even the US Department of Justice (DOJ) recognizes the problem in its study of the death penalty system
in the US. In its report, entitled The Federal Death Penalty System, A Statistical Survey (1988-2000),
released in September 2000, the DOJ states that, since the death penalty was reinstated in 1988, “significant
racial and geographical disparities has been found to exist. For instance, “[I]n 25 percent of the cases in
which a deferral prosecutor sought the death penalty in the last five years, the defendant has been a member
13
the criminalization of dissent,27
and the oblique racism of the kind promoted by such
academic works as The Bell Curve.28
But more significantly, it is impelled by the
of a minority group, and in more than half of the cases, an African-American.” This report is available
online at the US Department of Justice website at www.us.doj.gov/dag/pubdac/dpsurvey.html.
Commenting on this state of criminal justice system in the US, Manning Marable writes: “Behind much of
the anti-crime rhetoric was a not-so-subtle racial dimension, the projection of crude stereotypes about the
link between criminality and black people…. What seems clear is that a new leviathan of racial inequality
has been constructed across the country. It lacks the brutal simplicity of the old Jim Crow system, with its
omnipresent „white‟ and „colored‟ signs. Yet it is in many respects potentially far more devastating,
because it presents itself to the world as a system that is truly color-blind.” Please see the online version of
Marable‟s article, “Racism, Prisons and the Future of Black America,” originally published in Z Magazine,
at http://zmag.org/racismandblam.htm.
27
The criminalization of dissent took a most absurd turn recently when protesters gathered outside the
Republican and Democratic party conventions in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Los Angeles, California,
respectively, in the summer of 2000 were suppressed. Possession of cellular telephones by the protesters
was considered illegal and a protester found in possession of one was subject to arrest. Clearly, the
authorities knew that communication was vital to the success of the protests, and they were determined to
render these political protests ineffective by trying to suppress various elements of these protests including
the cutting off of one vital link that the protesters had with one another: their cell phones!
The criminalization of dissent is, of course, manifested in various other ominous ways in addition to the
more overt war on political dissent. One is through the criminalization of poverty by prohibiting the poor
and the homeless from panhandling, sitting at a park bench, sleeping at a public place, loitering at an upper-
class or touristy neighborhood all subsumed under what is regarded as “conduct ordinances.” This trend
towards the criminalization of poverty intensified with the enactment of the McKinney Act signed into law
by then President Ronald Reagan. This law defines people “homeless” if they lack a “fixed, regular, and
adequate night-time residence” other than a temporary shelter or an institution that provides temporary
residence not meant for “regular sleeping accommodation for human beings.” All quotes are from
Christopher Peabody, “Criminalization of the Homeless Paper” (November 21, 1999) available online at
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/`suitcase/share/criminalization.html. In response to claims by advocates of
these “conduct ordinances” that their aim is only to curb the behavior or “lifestyle choice” of individuals,
critics contend that these so-called behaviors are, in fact, characteristics of certain social classes and that
they are “all aspects of a social condition .” As one group explains, then wonders with regards to such
ordinances in the municipality of Santa Cruz, California: “We charge that it is extremely false to assert that
any majority of the nation‟s homeless are „homeless by choice‟. Yet the disgust and hatred that is exhibited
towards those perceived as choosing not to participate in the current economic system seems telling. Why
should the assertion that a particular „lifestyle‟ was chosen be valid grounds for its subsequent suppression?
Perhaps because that „choice‟ is perceived as a tremendous threat to the current status quo….” Please see
“Santa Cruz Camping Ban/Conduct Ordinances: The Criminalization of Dissent,” available online at
www.au.iww.org/labor/social_dissent.html. (Emphasis supplied)
A final example here is the marginalization, rather than the criminalization, of dissent. This is described by
Edward S. Herman as being market-induced. In his article, “The Market Attack on Dissent,” Herman
explains this particular variety: “It is one of the many ironies of the new „information age‟ of proliferating
data bases and TV channels, that the „public sphere‟ and public service programming are gradually
shriveling and liberal-left dissent… is under steady attack. The shrinkage is a natural consequence of the
increasing market domination of the communications system, especially the mass media; and the attack on
dissent is being carried out to a very great extent by politicians, pundits, institutions, and intellectuals who
can be regarded as agents of the market.” Mainstream media organizations are particularly interested in this
marginalization of dissent as they are inclined to programming that will provoke less controversy and not
alienate their advertisers. “Owners of the major media,” Herman explains, “are rich and mainly very
conservative; as members of the elite they are invariably hostile to fundamental attack on the system and
14
deleterious effects of globalization including but not limited to the growing income gap
and breakdown in the delivery of vital social services in this country affecting the most
vulnerable segments of the population, e.g., newly-arrived immigrants, women, children,
the elderly, the native Americans, not to mention the indigents in the Black community.
Much of this situation was brought about, not surprisingly, by the confluence of two
powerful forces coming from two opposite directions. On one hand, there are the forces –
most prominent of whom was Georgia Representative Newt Gingrich -- that led the
Republican Revolution‟s “Contract With America” which, as critics contend, have turned
out to be nothing more than “Contract on America.” The same forces marshaled enough
strength at the 2000 Republican Party Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to insert
in their party platform a provision for the repeal of the Fourteenth Amendment – an
amendment which binds all fifty states to the federal guarantees of political and civil
rights for all citizens! On the other, there are the forces of the New Democrats led by
President Bill Clinton whose Democratic Leadership Council reoriented the Democratic
Party away from its New Deal roots so that this party, under the titular leadership of
President Clinton would appeal to more conservative constituencies by presiding over the
unprecedented growth in the prison industrial complex,29
assisting in the confirmation of
two of the most conservative incumbent justices of the Supreme Court (i.e., Antonin
Scalia and Clarence Thomas), initiating the reform of welfare “as we knew it,” e.g.,
Welfare Reform Act of 1997, pressing for the enactment of nefarious laws, e.g.,
Immigration Reform and Control Act, Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act, and the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, a triple
package of legislation all enacted in 1996 aimed at restricting the rights of immigrants,
expanding the range of crimes “eligible” for the death penalty, and, at the same time,
strengthening the coercive hand of government agencies like the Immigration and
Naturalization Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation; presiding over the most
dramatic realignment of wealth in recent years characterized by the dramatic rise in
profits and salaries for corporations and their executives, respectively, and the dismal and
steady decline in real wages of the average worker. As one observer notes, “While
middle-class Americans are working their way into poverty, income and wealth continue
to accumulate among the top 20 percent of the population. Commonly accepted
even to milder forms of populism. Major advertisers are also uniformly against populist critiques. The
largest advertiser, Procter & Gamble, explicitly insists on programming that avoids portraying business as
„cold ruthless, and lacking all sentiment or spiritual motivation,‟ and that does not attack „some basic
conception of the American way of life.‟” All quotes are from the above-referred article reproduced from
the March 1996 issue of Z Magazine and made available online at
http://zmag.org/Zmag/articles/mar96herman.htm.
28
Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve; Intelligence and Class Structure in
American Life (New York: The Free Press, 1994), 845 pp. For critical commentaries on this book, please
see Claudia Krenz‟s website, entitled “Anatomy of an Analysis,” devoted to a replication of the techniques
employed by Hernstein and Murray, at www.srv.net/~msdata/bell.html; and the American Psychological
Association‟s 1996 Task Force Report, “Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns,” available through
www.apa.org/releases/intell.html.
29
Please visit the website www.pressenter.com/davewest/prisons/prisons.html for a series of critical articles
on the subject of prison industrial complex. Included in this collection of essays is an online version of Eric
Schlosser‟s highly acclaimed series on the same subject, originally published in the December 1998 issue
of Atlantic Monthly.
15
definitions of wealth, unemployment, poverty, and income often obscure more than they
clarify.30
Coincident to the formation of the progressive alliance alluded to above is the revival – in
appreciation of the continuing salience – of much of the ideas of some of the early
leaders. The anti-colonial and anti-imperial sentiments, for instance, of Garvey have
earned a sympathetic hearing not only in von Eschen‟s book but also supplied the essence
in Juan Gonzalez‟s popular work, Harvest of Empire, in his reinterpretation of the
Latino diaspora.31
In another instance, DuBois is paid tribute to by Vijay Prasad in his
book, The Karma of Brown Folk32
which takes off from the famous question, i.e.,
“How does it feel to be a problem?,” asked by DuBois in his own classic work, The Soul
of Black Folk.33
.In critiquing the “model minority with which mainstream scholarship
and corporate media have identified new immigrants of Asian background, Prasad
reverses DuBois‟s question and asks: “How does it feel to be a solution?” Prasad then
proceeds to discuss how the “model minority” category has been deployed not only as “a
weapon in the war against Black America” but also against the so-called “model” Asian
immigrants themselves.
Similarly but more trenchantly, E. San Juan, Jr.‟s series of monographs offer arguably the
most profound penetrating critique of post-colonial theoretizing, including the works of
such post-modernists as Homi Bhabha and Gayatri Spivak who, in their body of works,
either conceal or refuse to admit the persistence of racism and the resistance to it.34
Paying homage to the memory of Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Paolo Freire, Frantz
30
Please see Celine-Marie Pascale, “Normalizing Poverty,” Z Magazine (June 1995) as
republished online at www.zmag/articles/june95pascale.htm. In a prepared for the non-profit group United
for a Fair Economy, it was also pointed out that the so-called economic boom of the 1990s has occurred in
the midst of decline of unionization of labor and the increasing assault on civil society, e.g., intense police
suppression of protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle, Washington in November-
December 1999, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. in April 2000,
and the Republican and Democratic party conventions in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Los Angeles,
California, respectively, in the summer of 2000. The same study notes that nearly 90 per cent of stock
market earnings in the US during the same decade has accrued to the wealthiest 10 per cent of American
households. For further information, please see Chuck Collins and Felice Yeskel, Economic Apartheid in
America; A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity (New York: The New Press, 2000), 229 pp.
For more information, please visit the website of United for a Fair Economy at www.ufenet.org. 31
(New York: Viking Penguin, 2000). 32
Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota, 2000). 33
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1998). 34
In a parallel critique of post-modernism, Bell Hooks explains that post-modernism‟s apparent
obsession with “otherness and difference” have little concrete impact or value as an analytical device. “If
radical post modernist thinking is to have a transformative impact,” Hooks admonishes, “then a critical
break with the notion of „authority‟ as „mastery over‟ must not simply be a rhetorical device, it must be
reflected in habits of being, including styles of writing as well as chosen subject matter. Third-world
scholars, especially elites, and white critics, who passively absorb white supremacist thinking, and
therefore never notice or look at black people on the streets, at their jobs, who render us invisible with their
gaze in all areas of daily life, are not likely to produce liberatory theory that will challenge racist
domination., or to promote a breakdown in traditional ways of seeing and thinking about reality, ways of
constructing aesthetic theory and practice.” Please see “Postmodern Blackness,” in 1,1 (September 1990),
available online at
http://cygnus.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Articles_…/Postmodern_Blackness_18270.htm.
16
Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, Che Guevara and several others in the radical democratic
tradition, San Juan, Jr., in his book, Beyond Post Colonial Theory, demystifies the
dogmas of multiculturalism, diversity and civil society, and recovers in an
uncompromising manner the value of the revolutionary process as central to any dialogue
with Western hegemony.35
In another work, San Juan, Jr. reminds his readers about the
centrality of race in any endeavor to make sense of the heterogeneity of conflicting
cultures in the US. He writes: “Race, not ethnicity, articulates with class and gender to
generate the effects of power in all its multiple protean forms.” In critiquing the
assumptions of the profuse literature on ethnicity from the mainstream liberal academic
establishment, San Juan, jr. asserts, in another work, that ethnicity theory “elides power
relations, conjuring an illusory state of parity among bargaining agents”; “serves chiefly
to underwrite a functionalist mode of sanctioning a given social order”; and “tends to
legitimize a pluralist but hierarchical status quo.”36
On the historical basis of the prevailing configuration and articulations of power unique
to the US, San Juan, Jr. explains with unrelenting clarity and candor: “From its inception,
35
(New York: St. Martin‟s Press, 1998). 36
All quotes are from his Articulations of Power in Ethnic and Racial Studies in the United
States (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1992). Tim Wise , in a brief piece appearing in the
January 11, 2000 issue of Z Magazine, shares San Juan, Jr.‟s sentiments when he enumerates a number of
problems which he sees with the ideology behind multiculturalism and diversity. Problems which he notes
have escaped consideration among those who supposedly advocate multiculturalism and ideology. First, the
fact that courts have “begun to rule in most instances that diversity – whatever its benefits – is not a
„compelling state interest‟: the kind these same courts say must exist in order for state actors to fashion any
race-conscious policy, like affirmative action.” Second, the supposed benefits of “diversity” have allowed
its liberal proponents to feel good and, consequently, “retreat from the earlier rationales which focused on
institutional race and gender barriers to opportunity.“ “This retreat,” Wise states further, “makes it easier
for critics to claim that such barriers must no longer exist, since if they did, surely the civil rights
community would be talking about them, and continuing to push for affirmative action on that basis.”
Third, asserting that diversity has its benefits on college campuses in terms of students “learning from one
another‟s different experiences,” according to Wise, begs the critical question: “Why are folks‟ experiences
so different in the first place?” Wise supplies the answer to his question: “[I]t is racism itself that causes
Americans to have such radically different experiences in this society; in which case, the „benefits‟ of
diversity as learning opportunity cannot be abstracted from the reason why such „diversity‟ is currently
lacking – namely institutionalized inequity.” And, fourth, claiming that “there is something inherently
valuable about people from different backgrounds learning and working together,” asserts Wise, “allows
the right to counter with their own versions of pro-diversity arguments, such as „we need more Christian
conservatives among liberal arts faculty,‟ or „we should promote ideological diversity‟ in a presumably left-
leaning academic department (like Women‟s Studies)” as a means by which a right-wing faculty might be
brought in. The lesson that Wise would like to leave his readers is this: “Unless we reorient the discussion
to issues of equity and justice [which proponents of multiculturalism and diversity are not appreciate
enough to advocate], it will be just as likely that historically Black colleges – none of which ever excluded
anyone on the basis of race, nor apply admissions criteria which have race-exclusive impacts today – will
be forced to „diversity‟ by dramatically expanding slots for white students, as that predominantly white
schools would have to change.” Wise cites the example at Tennessee State University where a court has
ordered the institution to become 50 per cent white from its current 85 per cent Black enrollment at the
same time that historically white University of Tennessee is expected only to become 11 per cent African
American! “The logic of diversity,” Wise concludes, “compels this response, absent a historically grounded
institutional analysis of racism: including a grasp of who are its victims, and who its beneficiaries.” Please
see his piece, “Springing the Diversity Trap,” available online at http://zmag.org/ZSustainers/ZDaily/2000-
01/11wise.htm.
17
the United States has been distinguished as a sociohistorical formation with specific
racial dynamics. It was contoured by the expulsion of American Indian nations from their
homelands and their genocidal suppression, an inaugural and recursive phenomenon
followed by the enslavement of millions of Africans, the dispossession of Mexicans, the
subjection of Asians, and so on. The historical origin of the United States as a nation-
state, traditionally defined by the revolutionary Enlightenment principles enunciated by
the „Founding Fathers,‟ cannot be understood without this genocidal foundation. „Race‟
came to signify the identities of social groups in struggle for resources: land, labor power,
and their fruits. Ultimately, then, the struggle for command over time/space and the
positioning of bodies in this North American habitat politicized the social order and set
the course for the future.”37
The continued denial that race matters is reflected in the shallow discourse among the
two major candidates – al Gore of the Democratic Party and George Bush, jr. of the
Republican Party – as they trade petty accusations against each other for waging “class
warfare.” The issue foremost in these candidates‟ minds presumably concerns their
respective tax plans which, if implemented, would have consequences on the
redistribution of wealth in this country. In fact, however, both their plans are designed
largely to appease their middle and upper class constituencies. The lower class which, in
large measure, intersects with race and gender is all but forgotten. Candidate Gore, for
instance, asserts that his opponent, Candidate Bush, would award as much as $25 billion
a year to the wealthiest families in America….” “What he is actually proposing,” Gore
contends, “is a massive redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the wealthiest
few. It is in fact a form of class warfare on behalf of the billionaires.”38
Never mind that
the real “class warfare” is, in fact, being waged lopsidedly in another front, as Russell
Mokhiber and Robert Weissman note. In their September 1999 commentary, “An
Outsiders‟ View of the One-Sided Class Warfare in the USA,” Mokhiber and Weissman
call attention to the report by the Brussels-based International Confederation of Free
Trade Unions (ICFTU) which notes, among others: “While in theory U.S. law provides
for workers to have freedom of association, the right to join trade unions and participate
in collective bargaining is in practice denied to large segments of the American
workforce in both the public and the private sectors…. Employers receive legal
protection for extensive interference in the decision of workers as to whether or not they
wish to have union representation. This includes active campaigning by employers
among employees against union representation as well as participating in campaigns to
eliminate union representation.” On the other hand, the Report continues, “Many
government workers are denied the right to strike or bargain collectively over hours,
wages, and other critical issues. Nearly half of public workers suffer from full or partial
denial of collective bargaining rights. Union supporters who suffer from illegal firings,
harassment, surveillance, or improper employer electioneering do not have adequate
remedies at the National Labor Relations Board. NLRB procedures „do not provide
workers with effective redress in the face of abuses by employers.‟ The Report goes on:
“The law gives employers the „free play of economic forces.‟ If employers cannot get
37
San Juan, Jr., Articulations of Power, loc.cit., p. 5. 38
Please see Katharine Q. Seelye, “Gore Accuses Bush of Waging „Class Warfare‟,” New York
Times, November 1, 2000, p. 1..
18
what they want through collective bargaining, they can unilaterally impose their terms,
lock out their employees, and transfer work to another location, or even to another legal
entity.”39
Taken in this context, President Clinton‟s much touted “Race Initiative” in 1997 offers at
best palliative solutions to the problem of race.40
Even the Rainbow Coalition, founded
and headed by noted civil rights leader, Rev. Jesse Jackson, has lost both its steam and
direction as it has virtually been co-opted by the Democratic Party.41
Despite his having
been locked out of the corporate-sponsored “debates” sponsored by the Commission on
Presidential Debates, and despite his having been shun by the mainstream media, it turns
out that the most promising voice in this year‟s presidential contest in behalf of the poor
and the peoples of color is that of Green Party candidate Ralph Nader. Nader‟s candidacy
seeks to make the US voting public realize that the US political process has virtually been
hijacked by the two-party duopoly that seeks to predetermine the outcome of any political
contest that excludes third parties. The salience of third parties and the attendant proposal
for proportional representation system becomes more obvious as peoples of color realize
greater clarity that they have been condescended upon and taken for a ride by the two
dominant political parties, and that a third-party alternative of a progressive orientation
offers the only viable exist out of this political trap.
Nader‟s stance on race is in stark contrast to the deafening silence of Gore and Bush on
the subject despite their numerous joint press appearances described by the mainstream
media – including the publicly supported Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- as
debates during the Fall 2000 campaign season. In a statement, “Race in America,”
published in an October 2000 issue of Black World Today, Nader offers yet the most
candid acknowledgement of the racial divide in the US that any other candidate is yet to
39
Mokhiber and Weissman‟s article is available online at http://lists.essential.org/corp-focus. 40
For more information on the president‟s “Race Initiative,” please visit the website
www.whitehouse.gov/Initiatives/OneAmerica/about.html. 41
The cooptation and subsequent political emasculation of the Rainbow Coalition followed a
bitter and disgraceful attempt on the part of the Democratic Party establishment to discredit and beat down
Jesse Jackson‟s insurgent candidacy for the presidency in opposition to Al Gore‟s own aspirations for the
same office in the 1988 elections. Gore‟s role in this anti-Jackson smear campaign was described by
Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Claire in their book, Al Gore: A User’s Manual (London: Verso
Books, 2000), 240 pp., in the following works: “[Gore] displayed himself as a mean-spirited [sic] and
graceless campaigner whose two achievements were entirely negative. He served as the political assassin
whistled up by the Democratic powers to destroy another contender for the nomination, Jesse Jackson….”
Rick Giombetti, in a review of Cockburn and St. Claire‟s book, notes a bit of irony in what Gore has asked
Jackson to do with regards to the Nader candidacy. Giombetti writes: “Gore helped smear the Democratic
Party left when Jesse Jackson‟s insurgent campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination was
riding high in 1988. This smearing of Jackson during the New York primary came after Gore had
humiliated himself in previous primaries. Gore‟s campaign was finished but he became the party
leadership‟s attack dog against the party‟s left. This is why it is painful to watch Jesse Jackson and other
Democratic Party liberals doing the same thing on behalf of Gore in 2000. Jesse Jackson was on the
receiving end of Gore‟s bullying in 1988. Now he is taking part in a similar smear campaign against an
outside insurgency by Ralph Nader and the Green Party, which he should be joining instead of helping
attack [sic].” Please see Giombetti‟s webcast commentary aired through the Independent Media Center,
“Gore Did the Same Thing to Jesse Jackson in ‟88” (November 5, 2000) available online at
www.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=7485.
19
make.42
“America remains burdened by a racial chasm,” Nader opens his statement. Then
he goes on: “The life chances and opportunities of people of color in the United States are
limited as compared to whites. The legacy of historic discrimination – de jure and de
facto – continues to weigh on the present; and current day discrimination persists
throughout American life – in access to healthcare, educational services, employment
opportunities, wage levels, capital, the criminal justice system, and media employment.”
Nader addresses – and describes -- in the same statement the cross-cutting nature of the
effects and consequences of the country‟s failure to grapple with its racial legacy. In the
excerpt that follows, quoted at length in part because the mainstream media have been
complicit in denying the public the right to understand all they could from all the
candidates, and partly to share it with the academic community for purposes of analysis
and discussion, Nader explains that much of the burdens
…imposed on people of color in the United States are those piled on
working people, regardless of race. If the richest nation in the history of
the world chose, as it could do, to eliminate poverty; if we set aside the
concerns of insurance companies and installed a functioning national
healthcare system that assured coverage and access to quality care for all;
if all employers were required to pay living wage to all of their workers; if
all workers, including agricultural workers, were guaranteed the right to
unionize without facing employer threats or coercion; if we required banks
to make affordable checking accounts and other lifeline financial services
available to all; if we acted to stop electricity deregulation from enabling
“electricity redlining,” with inferior service delivered to lower-income
consumers; if the regulatory authorities cracked down on consumer fraud
that steals billions each year from working people, and banned the
mortgage scams and legal loan-sharking that are rampant in poor
communities; if we fostered and supported community development credit
unions to meet the lending, saving and development needs of lower-
income neighborhoods and others; if we invested in a mass transit system
that connected all communities and enabled people to travel efficiently
without cars; if we ended the failed War on Drugs, began treating drug
addiction as a health problem rather than a criminal problem, and
eliminated the extreme mandatory sentences for drug possession and
minor drug-related crimes; if we installed community policing programs
around the country; if we guaranteed adequate childcare to all; if we
expanded Social Security to provide more income to the widows and
widowers – then we would in the process redress many of the racial
divides that now plague the nation.43
No doubt, Nader‟s stance on the various issues that he touched on in the above-quoted
statement is the most progressive and courageous yet from any presidential candidate in
42
This statement is available online at http://headlines.igc.org:8080/arnheadlines/97196834/index_html. 43
Full text of this statement is available online at
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/arnheadlines/971968934/index_html.
20
so many years. His position on matters of race and ethnicity is particularly appealing to
working families and communities of color in this country. His candidacy resonates
among those who share a common disenchantment with the political status quo although
continually ignored by the political establishment as a “spoiler” and a “political
narcissist,”44
i.e., until the closing days of the Fall 2000 campaign when it became clear
that he might, in fact, garner enough support that might otherwise be coveted by one or
the other major political party – the degree of support which, by the major parties‟
narcissistic calculation – might make the difference in victory or defeat at the polls.45
If Nader, a product of the values of a hardworking immigrant family, has been such a
minor and insignificant political factor in this year‟s elections, one would wonder why in
the few weeks leading up to the November 7 elections he is coming under such intense
attacks particularly from the Democratic Party establishment which should, instead, see
in his Green Party platform the mirror image of what the Democratic Party should have
been like. Instead, he is accused of “taking” votes away from Democratic Party candidate
Gore which could cost Gore the election in closely contested states. Nader‟s point,
however, is well-taken: his participation is not so much to win in the elections or to spoil
the party for one or the other major candidate but, rather to energize the electorate into
supporting a viable progressive movement that could be sustained long after this year‟s
elections are over. “As always, Nader‟s fight is for long-term institutional change,” writes
James Ridgeway in a recent Village Voice article. As for the Clinton-Gore team,
Ridgeway comments further that, through the Democratic Leadership Council, they have
“wallowed in the hog trough of opportunism. The votes they‟re losing to Nader are votes
they don‟t deserve to keep.”46
IV. Concluding Reflections
The preceding pages critically discussed the presuppositions of the conservative and the
liberal paradigms in their respective attempt to explain the nature and origins of
contemporary race and ethnic relations in this country. While the conservative paradigm
basically discounts the salience of color in favor of hard work as a passport to the
American Dream, the liberal paradigm is not averse to government initiatives to assist –
on the basis of color if need be -- those who might be or who have been disadvantaged on
account of skin color. The structuralist paradigm as manifested, for instance, by the
progressive agenda, is critical of both conservative and liberal assumptions as woefully
inadequate if not inappropriate in dealing with the problems highlighted by the
intersection of race, class, and gender. Against the conservatives, progressives point to
the structural barriers that prevent upward social and economic mobility even with the
strict adherence to a work ethic. Against the liberals, progressives point out that their
44
Editorial, New York Times, November 5, 2000. 45
Supporters of the Nader candidacy, however, counter that, indeed, it is the Democratic Party
that is being the spoiler by “insisting that voters are unwitting Bush supporters if they pull the lever for
Nader no matter where they live. They [i.e., Democratic Party supporters] don‟t want the Green Party to get
5 percent because it will illustrate the depth of dissatisfaction progressive voters feel with the Clinton-Gore
agenda. “ Quoted from James Ridgeway, “Behind the Attacks on Nader,” in The Village Voice, November
1-7, 2000, and available online at www.villagevoice.com/issues/0044/ridgeway.shtml. 46
Ibid.
21
profession of multiculturalism, diversity, and pluralism is superficial and does not
address the fundamental issues of social justice and economic equity. The hierarchical, as
opposed to egalitarian, propensity of liberalism and its selective amnesia – shared also by
their conservative counterparts – about historical events mitigates against its ability to
make amends with the victims of racism either historically or contemporarily.
The success of the progressive alternative is premised on its ability to mobilize grassroots
public support in a program, among others, to open up the political process to those
traditionally disenfranchised and more recently alienated from the political process.
Attempts in the past at coalition building have failed because they have given way to
opportunism and short-term gain. Not to be minimized, however, is the role of the state in
suppressing proposed alternatives that might fundamentally challenge the privileges of
those forces that currently benefit from the status quo. The candidacy of Nader in this
year‟s elections has served to galvanize to a significant degree progressive forces in this
country, but much remains to be done. For instance, progressives need to overcome their
division between working within a party framework, e.g., the Democratic Party, or
building outside this party system a viable social movement – not just a party – that could
be sustained beyond elections. In another instance, they need to exert much greater effort
than they have so far in attracting and bringing into their ranks peoples of color.
Peoples of color have a role to play in this progressive agenda. In the long term, they
have much to gain from progressivism‟s success in terms of giving them a voice in
governance, in the shaping of public policy, and in the enjoyment of social benefits. They
have a reason to be confident that they would not be regarded as “invisible” in a society
where everybody is esteemed for who they are. On the other hand, peoples of color also
have much to share in terms of their values. An overwhelming percentage of them having
come from former colonies of Western countries, and having had direct experiences with
the nuances of colonialism and its neo-colonial variant, the peoples of color can share
with the rest of the members of this society about the necessity of constant struggle and
the values of justice, fairness, dignity, and mutual respect. These alone could have an
impact towards revising the value of individualism, for instance, as currently practiced in
order to mitigate the greed, opportunism, and morally debauching spirit of
competitiveness that corrupt the present system.
***
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