Re: The US has probably the most diverse collection of people living together on the planet. How much more "tolerant" or an "example" can a country become?
Ahem... I beg to differ. Americans boast of their "diversity" merely because of the "immigrant background" of most, if not all, Americans. Indeed, since all Americans' forebears come, one way or another, from Europe, Africa, South America, Asia, the Middle East, and so on, one can rightfully call the US a "melting pot", a diverse polity made up of people of every hue and shade...
I contend, however, that it's a veneer diversity because of the tremendous pressure US institutions (ie the media, school, churches, the military, politics...) exert upon the citizenry to assimilate and conform to the so-called American Way of Life, American Values, Religion and Ideology. Again, I'll draw a parallel with Europe: the US is indeed a multiracial monoculture whereas Europe is a true multicultural white monolith.
Compared to Europeans, Americans are clueless about real multiculturalism which they mistake for multiracialism. After all, that's why the Sun Belt's white constituencies are fretting about legal and illegal immigration from Mexico --that's true multiculturalism knocking on their door... In the US, so long as you revere the Flag, the Bible and the Apple Pie, so long as you're a churchgoer with a Judeo-Christian denomination or an all-American cult (Scientology,...), so long as you get excited over the Superball, basketball,..., so long as you throw BBQ parties with your neighbors or garage sales, so long as you are fluent in English and watch and read English media, papers to make your mind on what's going on, then you're indeed part of the big American Family... whether you're black, yellow, red, blue, green or white. That's what NRO pundit Victor Davis Hanson(*) means when he claims that, while it can't become a multicultural society, the US remains, and can thrive as, a multiracial polity. That's what the issue of bilingualism and the specter of Mexifornia are all about!
Europe, somehow, is the mirror image of the US predicament: so long as you are lily-white, it doesn't matter whether you're religious or atheist, whether you speak French or Dutch (except in Belgium, of course...), whether your drink beer or wine, whether you're Communist or Conservative, or even whether you converted to Islam --you're European. If, on the other hand, you happen to be black, Arab, Asian, whatever non-white complexion, then, no matter how hard you try to fit in, you'll never be considered as a true, genuine member of the European family... Mosques, couscous, grigris, Arabic, lingala, saris, sheesh-kebab and cheap textiles made in China, don't belong to Europe --period.
Gus
(*) townhall.com |
