Multiculturalism and Racism

You caught me…

I tried to mash the internet’s two most controversial words together, in hopes that it would give me an idea of something to write about.

Actually, I have been mulling over some thoughts one of my friends made a few weeks back about multiculturalism, and it was about time to ponder it myself. Andrew Callaghan’s documentary about a small “all white” settlement in Arkansas connected the remaining dots of course.

“Multiculturalism” is one of those ideas that has been kicked around between the various internet echo chambers to such an extent that much of what it actually means has become hopelessly muddled. I think, in general, Multiculturalism originally described a mindset and movement to recognize the contributions of other ethnic groups and to promote a paradigm where disparate cultures existed in parallel with others to the betterment of one another. This developed in the wake of the 19th and 20th century Nationalist movements and the subsequent violence begotten by the Second World War, where entire populations were targeted and systematically exterminated in favor of perceived “racial” homogeneity. The idea that we all needed to calm the fuck down and get along, naturally, picked up steam. In an increasingly shrinking world, where national boundaries are easily traversed both fiscally and physically, the reaction against Multiculturalism has been to recoil and retreat to an earlier time where we existed in much smaller communities, with closer familial and social bonds. The problem with this is that what constitutes as “one’s neighbor”, as always, is up to selective interpretation. Remember the internment of American citizens with Japanese Ancestry during WW2? Apparently no one else does either.

Andrew Callaghan suggests that the influx of black communities into the Northern United States during the early 20th century caused existing Polish, Irish, Italian, and other distinctly “European” neighborhoods to dissolve and lose cohesion by becoming displaced. But this is no surprise. The deeply rooted animus Southern communities felt towards their black neighbors, combined with the persecution of black communities at the hands of fraternal, nativist hate groups like the Klu Klux Klan, created a powder keg of racial tension that fragmented communities in North and South alike. That said, I am inclined to disagree with some of Callaghan’s conclusions, if only because these northern immigrant communities were already rapidly progressing towards some form of generational assimilation that, inevitably, would have blurred the existing social lines. Something similar to what happened after the War of 1820, when Americans began to lose their British accents and customs in favor of something distinctly “America”.

That a group of Neo Nazis have attempted to extricate themselves from their own communities to homestead in the Ozarks is the natural outworking of our current obsession with independence. This is because our own proclivity to independence has been etched into our very consciousness, at a national, philosophical, and spiritual level since the dawn of Western civilization. The very founding document of my own country declared our “Independence” from the then reigning royal authority that exercised power over us. European peasants found independence from the social constraints of Medieval Feudalism in the wake of the Black Death, which inaugurated a Renaissance that precipitated the Enlightenment and scientific revolution. Even our popular interpretations of Judeo-Christian theology over-emphasized the role and importance of our Salvation from our sin, above the work that Jesus called us to do in a multiethnic community with others. I emphasize the development of our own independence because we exist presently in the most realized outworking of that in the form of social media and celebrity culture.

But how did I get to this from Multiculturalism?

Hold on, I’m getting there…

Finding our independence in self-expression, to no one’s surprise, has proved a vain pursuit. With social media monetizing our interactions, we are incentivized to view, compare, and comment on the plethora of artificial and unrealistic standards presented to us on these platforms. Serendipitously (from Facebook’s perspective at least), our conflict drives the sensation of interaction on the platform all the more, resulting in greater engagement. The end result is our outrage being harvested as a renewable resource, which only results in our despair and the hobbling of our ability to socialize in person. (My theory is that the dissatisfaction brought on by social media has swung us now in the other direction, with isolated users seeking community and affiliation, by any means necessary.) The election of an internet troll and the COVID Pandemic constituted the spark that ignited the kindling of our society, turning it into the dumpster fire it is today. Tribalism appeals to disaffected social media users because online communities are enabled to interact in a closed feedback loop where the community members are “right” and those outside are “wrong”. Any divergent opinion is quickly extinguished so that the community can continue to be enclosed in it’s bubble. Plainly put, this is how echo chambers form.

Multiculturalism appears to be pushing back against echo chambers of all sorts, but creating one of it’s own in the process. The movement constitutes a community rooted in inclusion and cooperation, and anyone operating outside of that paradigm is “backwards” or “out of touch”. The idea of Multiculturalism rankles the flesh of Tribalists because they think it is the antithesis of the tight-nit community, although this is mostly because people don’t understand what Multiculturalism is (including the Multiculturalists). (More on that in a moment.) My opinion on all of this is that Multiculturalism is actually appealing to the greater biological truth that we are all Homo sapiens. We must accept the reality that across our species, various communities have chosen to express their beliefs and values in different ways, and that’s okay. Some of us are Black Labs, German Shepherds, Poodles, and Chihuahuas, and yet, at the end of the day, we are all still dogs.

So, bringing it all back, why am I writing about Multiculturalism? A few weeks ago, I was talking with my friend, who postulated that Multiculturalism was one of the worst things to embrace inside a democratic, Western society because it compromised allegiance to the unified vision of the state for it’s citizens by introducing competing social values and goals. Granted, their understanding of Multiculturalism was a bit of cart-before-the-horse, speculating that it was concerned with accepting that all beliefs are valid without question, thereby making assimilation, in principal, not possible. (Cue audio of Trump insisting that “They are eating the Cats and Dogs!”) My only complaint with this definition, is that it’s based off a misunderstanding of what Multiculturalism is. Where the conversation then went was this sort of meandering line of thought about how Western civilization has moved us the farthest socially, technologically, and philosophically. Examples were given, points were made. I found that he was correct in principal but, again, not seeing the bigger picture of what was going on. My theory on why the advancements made by the originating Mediterranean civilizations were so stark, in contrast to more geographically isolated regions like North and South American, was because of the diversity of differing worldviews available in the region. Lands were conquered, weapons were observed, ideas were stolen. Advancement came at the expense of another.

At this point my friend broke in and suggested that “there was something about Western Europeans” that gave them an edge in the techno-social arms race of the Bronze Age. That this almost gave “us” a responsibility to shepherd other cultures towards greater advancements. You can see though how dangerously that idea teeters on the idea that one civilization is “superior” to another.

I think though, that all of this talk about Multiculturalism, the outrage of having to “lose culture” and influence to another ethnic group, is fundamentally shortsighted. In the same way, using small squabbles about identity as a means to destroy someone’s career is equally intolerant. I think we have to think about this on two different levels. The first pertains to our world and the reality that we occupy. We are forced to confront people every day that understand the world in a different way than us. So there is some level of Multiculturalism that we need to engage with, even if on a pragmatic level, to allow society to continue to exist. The second level is the metaphysical: we are created in the image and likeness of God. (This is what I believe as a Christian.) Our role of bearing His image gives moral weight and meaning to ideas like diversity, equity, and inclusion. Knowing that the intrinsic worth of another is bestowed by divine mandate impresses upon us the imperative of justice for the poor and marginalized abroad and at home. Is it possible for someone who doesn’t believe in God to extrapolate a purely biological imperative for being kind to another? I think that the argument for cooperation from the perspective of our evolutionary history has weight as well, but it lacks the fundamental understanding of Evil. We can, as a society, name and conceptualize what “evil” is… until our social mores inevitably change and shift. Demonizing immigrants because they “don’t share our values” is a perfectly reasonable position to take if your ultimate value is the cohesion of a nation state that provides validation in the form of citizenship. North Korea even agrees with that! I just think that it’s fundamentally wrong, blasphemous even, to see another human being (the sum of their culture, tradition, and history constituting their identity) as an existential threat to my nation. Why? Because, in God’s providence, He created the world to be diverse both socially and ecologically. We are united not by our cultural identity or nationality, but by our common humanity bestowed unto us by God, in his image. Anything short of that is the purest definition of Idolatry.

But that’s just my opinion.