Situating Communities of Color in the United States: Critical Reflections on the Paradigms of Multiculturalism and Diversity

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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:

[email protected].

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.

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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.

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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.

***