The Agony And The Anomie: The Triumph of Multiculturalism

I hesitate to call this lengthy essay a 'must-read', as I suspect this elicits a perverse impulse to click on the tiny 'x' at the top right corner of the IE window. But if you don't have time to read it today, consider book-marking it. Better yet, save it to your desktop so you don't forget about it.

Multiculturalism has invaded our culture, our discourse, schools, history books, politics, news reporting, language, and even, sadly, our private thoughts. Last night as the Unit and I perused the political talk shows, we were struck by the stilted debate over George Bush's refusal to meet with the NAACP. In marked contrast to other debates, the discussion was suddenly constrained by the convention of referring to blacks, not by the simple term denoting their skin color (oddly considered acceptable for 'whites'), but by the term "African-American". This, despite the undeniable fact that many American blacks hail, not from Africa, but from places other than the Dark Continent. But I suppose Caribbean-American would have been a bridge too far.

I am almost alone among people I know in my refusal to use the term African-American. I see nothing pejorative in the term 'black'. There is nothing shameful about having black skin, just as there is nothing shameful in having white, yellow, brown, red, or any other skin tone. I often wonder what happened to the 70's mantra, "Black is Beautiful"?

Like so many changes wrought by Leftist ideology, this too is perverse. "Black Pride" has become black shame. Sadly, those who once shouted, "Say it loud - I'm Black and I'm proud!" now demand that we not bring it to their attention, as though this undeniable fact were not the sort of thing civilized people discuss in polite company. Oddly, the term "black" has gone out of vogue, but one hears rappers refer to each other affectionately as "my niggah". That word, however, is only to be used by insiders. It becomes racist, not by the intent of the speaker, or how it is used in a sentence, but by the subjective interpretation of the listener.

There is a larger agenda behind the multicultural movement and it is one that should frighten all of us. It is nothing less than the destruction of Western civilization and the values upon which our society is founded. Crucial to this agenda is the suppression of the individual and the elimination of critical thinking.

The first step in this process is the preaching of faux tolerance. It is a false tolerance because, although it purports to promote understanding and greater freedom of expression and thought, at its heart is a deep-seated hatred of Western values and Christian morality. The key to faux tolerance is that everything is to be tolerated -- except of course, the intolerant man. By labeling Christians, conservatives, individuals, or anyone who dares to dissent from the multicultural party line as "intolerant" or a "hate speaker", multiculturalists lump anyone who disagrees with them into one bin and give the group carte blanche to denounce them. In multiculturalist orthodoxy, the cardinal sin is intolerance. The power of groupthink is so strong that the irony of denouncing and ostracizing people for the sin of intellectual dissent passes right over their heads.

Faux tolerance has another, more important side effect: it suppresses debate and discourages people from making distinctions; ultimately it becomes almost impossible for one to think critically or make comparisons. The ultimate payoff here is that, without a frame of reference in which there are clear rules and distinctions between right and wrong, moral value judgments become superflous. In a world without God, right, or wrong, everything is equal. The trouble is that, human nature being far from perfect, some of us inevitably end up being more equal than others.

Tolerance and multiculturalism also require the elimination of most labels. I say most because the Left uses its own set of labels to identify intolerant practices, primarily the heinous iniquities of Western civilization in general, and America in particular. This is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the multicultural movement and the least-often talked about - and this is not surprising, for the very words we need to talk about it are being stolen from us.

Our history books are being rewritten in a gender-, race-, and often fact-free way. All references to anything that could possibly offend any sexual, ethnic, racial, or other group are being eliminated. In the process, history is being altered. An entire generation is growing up without hearing how many millions of people died under Communist regimes. The wholesale genocide that occurred under Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot has been whited out of our children's history books. Instead they are told America opposed Communism in the early 20th Century out of some misguided aggressive impulse, as though the fact that tens of millions of people were brutally tortured and slaughtered were irrelevant. Their ghosts cry out: "Do not forget us", but the misguided compassion of the Left is reserved for the sadistic monsters who sent them to unmarked graves.

The final insult of multiculturalism is that it divides us, and, in so doing, allows us to be easily conquered and ruled. Rather than being, as the Founding Fathers intended, a nation of individuals united by a common set of values and love of liberty (E Pluribus Unum: "Out of Many, One" not, as Al Gore would have it, "Within one, many"), multiculturalism turns the melting pot of our school days into the Tower of Babel: a group of grasping, selfish special-interest groups all competing for a bigger slice of the pork barrel. A nation so divided and carved up is easily controlled - one need only promise to each group that which it most desires to set them against one another. Their competing self-interests ensure they will never make common cause. Lacking any ideology higher than their own selfish greed, they will never look up from the feeding trough long enough to see that they are headed for the slaughterhouse.

- Cassandra