Multiculturalism, "Political Correctness," and the Politics of Identity

Author(s): Martin E. Spencer

Source: Sociological Forum, Vol. 9, No. 4, Special Issue: Multiculturalism and Diversity (Dec.,
1994), pp. 547-567
Published by: Springer
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Sociological Forum, Vol. 9, No. 4, 1994

Multiculturalism, "Political Correctness," and

the Politics of Identity1

Martin E. Spencer2

American society, in the course of its earlier history, was shaped by the
competing visions of nativism and cosmopolitan liberalism. The first defined
the American identity in restrictive fashion, and sought to curtail naturalization
and immigration. The second, taking an expansive view of American identity,
pressed opposing policies. In the period following World War II, new visions
of American society have developed in the course of the struggles of people of
color to overcome their historical exclusion from the American cultural identity.
The latest of these visions are expressed in the movements of multiculturalism
and political correctness, which are seen here as facets of a new, and morally
assertive, view of American society, revolving around the efforts of previously
excluded groups to construct new identities. All of these forms of consciousness
-nativism, cosmopolitan liberalism, and multiculturalism -now compete on
the American scene in the politics of identity.
KEY WORDS: multiculturalism; politics of identity.

INTRODUCTION

The movement that is called "multiculturalism" is a signif

recent reflection of the long-continuing politics of identity in A
was evident in a report that was presented to Thomas Sobo
State's Commissioner of Education, which culled for a multicult
riculum that would raise such questions as the following:
American?" "Who am I?" "What is/are my cultural heritag
1991). It was also evident in a Time (1991) magazine story on t

1An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the Eastern Sociological
meeting, Arlington, Virginia, March 1992.
2Department of Sociology, State University College, Oneonta, New York 1382

547

0884-8971/94/1200-0547$07.00/0 ? 1994 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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548 Spencer

tural movement titled "Whose America?" The article asks, "What kind of
people do Americans now think they are, and what will they tell their chil-
dren about that?"
The politics of identity, in its relationship to multiculturalism, is als
exhibited in the movement launched by Jesse Jackson to designate Blac
Americans as "African Americans." This represented the third shift in t
self-designation of Black Americans -from "Negro" to "Black," to "Afri
can American." Each of these shifts can be understood as a choice of an
identity, signified by the choice of a name, which is the most fundamen
act of self-identification that a group can engage in. In calling for this shift,
Jackson explicitly referred to what he regarded as the inadequacy of t
designation "Black" to describe the historical location of the Africa
American community (Martin, 1991:102-103).
To complete the linkage of the terms in the title, multiculturalism
can be seen as a specific aspect of the broader movement of "political c
rectness," which is itself a product of the dynamics of the collective co
struction and reconstruction of identity in America.

THE EARLY PHASE OF THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY IN AMER-

ICA: THE VICISSITUDES OF NATIVISM (AMERICANISM) AND
COSMOPOLITAN LIBERALISM

At the time of the Revolution, three-quarters of the Am

lation consisted of White, English-speaking Protestants, wh
origins to the British Isles (Steinberg, 1989:7). There was, fro
ning, a strong religious consciousness of an American comm
on a common Protestant identity that had earlier developed f
Awakening of the 1740s, and that had subsequently matured
been described as a "civil millenialism" that infused the American colonies
with a sense of their providential significance in the scheme of world history
(Bellah, 1980:13).
The struggle over the American identity focused at this time on the
issue of immigration and naturalization, a focus it was destined to retain
well into the 20th century. The two positions on this issue-the nativist,
or nationalist, and that which we shall call the "cosmopolitan liberal"
also emerged in the early days of the republic. The nativists and cosmo-
politan liberals shared the assumption that an American cultural identity
existed, comprised of religion, language, manners, customs, and principle
of government. The idea of a Protestant religious identity was established
as was the use of the English language as the language of public discours
i.e., as a lingua franca (Steinberg, 1989:9).

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Multiculturalism 549

The nativist position was that immigrants would be inassimilable,

that their customs and manners would be inimical to maintaining th
litical institutions of the country, and that they would constitute a th
to the American cultural identity:
"Why should the Palatine boors be suffered to swarm into our settlements, and,
by herding together, establish their language and manners to the exclusion of ours?
Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of aliens, who
will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us, instead of our Anglifying
them . . . ?" (Benjamin Franklin, 1751, in Steinberg, 1989:11)

"But are there no inconveniences to be thrown into the scale against the advantage
expected from a multiplication of numbers by the importation of foreigners? . . .
They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in
their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an
unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another ....
In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us the legislation. They will
infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its directions, and render it a heterogenous,
incoherent distracted mass." (Thomas Jefferson, 1782, in Steinberg, 1989:12)

"To admit foreigners indiscriminately to the rights of citizens, the moment they
put foot into our country, as recommended in the message, would be nothing less
than to admit the Grecian horse into the citadel of our liberty and sovereignty"
(Alexander Hamilton, 1802, in Steinberg, 1989:12)

Despite these fears, immigration was considered necessary for the

tion's economic development at this time, and there was, therefore, a
sensus among nativists and liberals that it should be encouraged. A div
of opinion arose over the conditions to be attached to naturalizati
citizenship. On this point, the nativists advocated longer periods before
zenship could be achieved, while the liberals favored shorter periods.
tween 1790 and 1802, various naturalization measures were passed
reflected the tension between these positions. The naturalization peri
shifted between 2 and 14 years, until 1802, when it was fixed at 5 ye
(Steinberg, 1989:12-13).
The fundamental division between nativists (who later came to d
ignate their persuasion as "Americanism") and liberals was between
fear of the former, and the confidence of the latter, concerning the s
diness of the national identity. The nativists developed their position
hostility to immigrants as an expression of their fears concerning the
vival of an American identity, conceptualized in cultural, political, or
dimensions (Higham, 1955: ch. 1). The cultural dimension expressed it
most powerfully as an anti-Catholicism that appeared in the form of
"Know-nothing" agitation of the 1830s, in response to Irish Catholic
migration. The political dimension first appeared following the Fr
Revolution as the fear that "radicals" would overthrow the American
litical system, and experienced its most recent celebrated spasm in
"McCarthyism" of the 1950s. The racial dimension developed after the

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550 Spencer

of an American racial nationalism in the 19th century and enjoyed its most
infamous epiphany in Madison Grant's The Passing of the Great Race
(Higham, 1955:156-157). In all three of its incarnations nativism was the
expression of an identity-anxiety, which was the fear that the "American"
identity - however this might be conceptualized -was in jeopardy.
What I have here labeled "cosmopolitan liberalism" was propounded
on the diametrically opposite position that there was no reason to fear the
loss of the American identity, because immigration would not threaten it.
This position implied, most fundamentally, a different conception of the
American identity and a different attitude toward it. Cosmopolitan liber-
alism was based on a cosmopolitan ideal of nationality that was expansive
and inclusive, rather than exclusive and restrictive, as was the nativist idea.
It was grounded on Christian and secular democratic ideals of equality and
brotherhood, and an optimistic Enlightenment view of the perfectibility of
human nature. In this cosmopolitan liberal view of the American identity,
to be an American was to be loyal to these values, and an American na-
tionality could therefore be claimed by those who so adhered, irrespective
of accidents of race, culture, and origins. Thus, cosmopolitan liberals, self-
confident in their belief in the capacity of an inclusive American identity
to absorb immigrants, could face the prospect of immigration with the equa-
nimity of an Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said, "We are the Romans of
the modern world . . .the great assimilating people" (Higham, 1955:21).
Nativist anxiety waxed and waned in response to economic conditions
and to immigrant flows. It was quiescent in the period following the Civil
War, but developed greater intensity in the economic crises of the 1880s
that accompanied economic modernization, and that were further aggra-
vated by social disorganization. The first anti-immigration act, that of 1882,
developed in this period. Nativism appeared in those strata most threatened
by modernization, i.e., among the petit bourgeoisie, and unorganized work-
ers, whose place in society, that is to say whose social identity, was most
placed in jeopardy by the currents of the times. It was the religious strain
of nativism that now appeared, as manifested in a resurgent anti-Catholi-
cism that responded to a perceived threat to the native Protestant identity
from the Church hierarchy.
In the latter period of the 1880s, nativism turned in the direction of
the Anglo-Saxon racial idea. This had already been fermenting in the pe-
riod after the Civil War, as a response to both modernization, and to the
"New Immigration" from Eastern and Southern Europe (Gosset, 1970:287-
310). New England at this time was particularly gripped by a fear of the
decline of an Anglo-Saxon native American stock, and of a way of life gov-
erned by patricians who felt they were born to rule. This led to a feeling

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Multiculturalism 551

of profound identity-pessimism, of being overwhelmed by the lesser br

who were present in ever-increasing and threatening numbers.
After a period of Anglo-Saxon racial optimism that was reflected
the waxing imperialistic sentiments associated with the Spanish-Ame
War (Gosset, 1970: ch. 5), racial pessimism returned with a vengeance,
fears of "race suicide" (Gosset, 1970:147). This was concomitant with
rise in the New Immigration, which in the period from the Spanish-Am
can War to World War I was 31/2 times more than the old (Gos
1970:287-310). Of particular significance at this time was that the sh
focus of the nativist conception of the American identity in the direc
of the Anglo-Saxon racial identity now expanded that identity to inc
Northern Europeans, i.e., "Aryans," as well as the more limited group
"Anglo-Saxons" (Higham, 1955:140).
During World War I the emphasis of the nativist movement shif
in the direction of cultural nationalism, in the form of "100 per cent Amer
canism," and this took a turn toward antiradicalism in the "red scares" of
the 1920s (Higham, 1955: chs. 8 and 9). Anti-Catholicism was also inten-
sified during this decade, as was racial nationalism, as evidenced by the
popularity of Madison Grant's, The Passing of the Great Race, in the 1920s.
World War II had a profound effect on both nativism and cosmo-
politan liberalism, and this effect could be considered the product of yet
deeper tendencies, of which the war itself was but a singular manifestation.
The war was fought explicitly against the racial ideology of the Axis re-
gimes, and this made the rhetoric of Anglo-Saxon racism insupportable in
the context of the war effort. There was also the consideration that the
American army now included large numbers of second-generation Ame
cans descended from the New Immigration of the post-Civil War period
This excluded the possibility of admitting the legitimacy of religious nati
ism as a component of the American cultural nationalism. To this w
added the fact that American social science, strongly influenced by Eur
pean trends, had waged a war against "scientific racism," and had by th
time largely discredited it (Gosset, 1970: ch. 16).
These tendencies led to a war propaganda that celebrated a new and
more inclusive concept of an American cultural nationalism that embrace
the descendants of the most recent immigrants from Southern and Easte
Europe. This was evidenced in the wartime propaganda films that prom
nently featured the "All-American" platoon, which consisted of WASPS
and descendants of Swedes, Germans, Irish, Italians, Poles, Jews, Greeks,
etc., all with unmistakably "ethnic" names. This sense of unity in the w
effort was a powerful impetus to the fusion of the "ethnics" into the Ameri-
can cultural identity.

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552 Spencer

This sea change in American cultural nationalism, now inclusive of

the European diaspora of the New Immigration, was certified politically by
the election of the Catholic John Kennedy to the presidency in 1960. Sec-
ond- and third-generation descendants of the New Immigrants, albeit often
living in ethnic enclaves, were now in cultural terms virtually indistinguish-
able from other "Euro-Americans." They commingled in veteran's organi-
zations, they followed sports with equal avidity, they consumed hot dogs
and soft drinks at the ball park, they saw the same films and watched the
same programs on network television, and they thought of the religious
tradition of America in either "Judeo-Christian," or "Christian" terms. The
ambiguity of the latter point left the status of Jewish-Americans as still
problematic in the eyes of some nativists.

THE ERA OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS REVOLUTION

This process of the progressive fusion of previously exclude

cans into the image of American cultural nationalism notably fa
clude "people of color." This was most clearly indicated in the f
the American military was segregated throughout World War
Japanese-Americans were herded into camps, in flagrant denia
ostensible rights as citizens. Both Japanese and Chinese had ear
subject to immigration barriers that were clearly based on racia
The largest community of color excluded from the new
American national cultural identity- an identity that was now
White "Euro-American"-was that of Black Americans. Its si
lay not only in its size, but also in the particular conditions of i
as a community that had suffered the experience of slavery, a
presence in America was coerced.
African Americans were legally excluded from the American
at the founding of the republic by their status as slaves, and the
of Free Blacks bore the stigma of the exclusion of the larger n
slaves. After the Civil War, the legal fact of emancipation was no
into inclusion into the American cultural identity. The fact of l
cipation was also nullified in short order by the "Bargain of '7
allowed federal troops to be withdrawn from the South, and th
of "Black Codes" and "Jim Crow" legislation, which was certifi
"separate but equal" decision of the Supreme Court in the Pless
guson decision of 1896.
The de jure exclusion in the South was complemented by a
exclusion in the North. The latter was effected by informal seg
housing and schooling, racial discrimination in employment, and

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Multiculturalism 553

image of subordinated exclusion that was promulgated by the White-con-

trolled media. This continued up until the end of the World War II, as
has been indicated above. By the end of the war, the currents of liberali-
zation that had waged the battle against "scientific racism" had matured
into what Gunnar Myrdal referred to as the "American dilemma" (Myrdal
et. al, 1944). This was the palpable tension between the rhetorical and of-
ficial ideal of equality in America, and the de facto failure to apply this
idea to African Americans. De Tocqueville had once predicted that Amer-
ica would have to resolve this tension, and his prediction was now coming
to pass.
The Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954 was the culmination
of a maturing trend that reflected the "zeitgeist," and unleashed the "civil
rights revolution" that extended from 1954 to 1965. The politics of this
period involved a grass-roots protest movement against the various institu-
tions of segregation in the South, including schools, public facilities, e.g.,
restaurants and buses, and voting arrangements. The political dynamic be-
gan when Black protests met with Southern brutality, witnessed and re-
corded by the witness of the national media. The resulting publicity
occasioned a revulsion in the North, generating the political force that pro-
pelled federal intervention in the South to implement the principle of de-
segregation that had now become "the law of the land." The civil rights
legislation of 1964 and 1965 completed the legal and political revolution.
The ideals that animated the civil rights revolution of this period were
exactly the liberal ideals of the American Creed. The Black activists, led
by Martin Luther King, and the White liberals who lent political muscle
in these developments, both shared the egalitarian ideal of a "color-blind
society," in which Black Americans would be integrated into the American
identity, just as the White ethnics had been earlier. This was eloquently
expressed in King's "I have a dream" speech, in which he stated the hope
that one day his progeny would be judged for the "content of their char-
acter" rather than the "color of their skin." The shared goal was, then, for
an integrated American society as an ideal, as well as a matter of social
justice. The wide resonance of this appeal to the American Creed among
the American public-at-large was the secret weapon of the civil rights move-
ment.

FROM CIVIL RIGHTS AND EQUALITY TO THE POLITICS OF

IDENTITY: BLACK POWER AND "AFROCENTRISM"

The thrust of the civil rights movement, as we have argu

was to seek inclusion in the American identity by way of an

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554 Spencer

values of liberal egalitarianism. Both the goal and the spirit of this move-
ment was accommodationist, and White liberals played a significant role
in the movement, without significant signs of tensions with their Black co-
workers. These were the halcyon days of Whites and Blacks working to-
gether to create an integrationist ideal of the American identity. Their
common enemy was an American racial nationalism that was driven to
ground by the resurgent ideal of the American Creed, in the circumstances
of the global liberal zeitgeist of the period immediately following the end
of World War II.
This changed subsequent to the achievement of the legal goals of t
civil rights movement, and the death of Martin Luther King. The cha
was signaled by the campaign to change the name of "Negro" to "Blac
and was accompanied by a new kind of Black politics pursuing a new
jective.
The movement from "Negro" to "Black" symbolized a rejection of
the ideal of assimilation, represented by the middle-class "Negro" striving
to be assimilated into the White mainstream, in favor of the indigenous
ghetto culture of the street, which was affirmatively separatist and "Black"
(Martin, 1991:3). Black Power was a nation-building movement that
stressed Black pride and militancy: it was an identity-building movement that
sought to promote a "Black is beautiful" self-image among Black Ameri-
cans. Its goals, as far as its vision of American society was concerned, were
initially ambiguous, but they emphatically rejected the earlier assimilation-
ist-integrationist ideal of the civil rights movement. At first it was presented
in the style of American pluralistic, interest-group politics (Martin,
1991:84-85), but it subsequently became transmuted into something quite
different. In place of a politics of moral supplication there now appeared
an aggressive politics of confrontation and "non-negotiable demands." In
place of assimilation into a White culture there was to be a prideful em-
phasis on separatism. Criticism was directed against those middle-class
Blacks who mixed with Whites, and/or who sought to emulate White mid-
dle-class culture ((Martin, 1991:93). With the rise of the Black Muslim
movement some Blacks, e.g., Cassius Clay (Mohammed Ali), shed their
"slave names" to adopt Muslim names.
The rise of Black Power and the rejection of the integrationist ideal
was attended by a shift in the direction of Black politics from "equality of
opportunity" to "equality of result," which translated into affirmative action.
It was no longer considered sufficient to remove the legal barriers to Black
advancement. It was now necessary to overcome social barriers that were
regarded as a legacy of racism, and this could only be assured by guaran-
teeing Blacks a "piece of the action," i.e., assigning to them a predeter-
mined portion of the rewards and privileges of society. In practice, this

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Multiculturalism 555

meant assigning numerical goals for Black participation in sectors of em-

ployment and education. The painful debate over "quotas" was one product
of this policy. Beneath the polemics and technicalities of the controversy
over quotas were divergent views of what affirmative action actually was
intended to be. "Affirmative action" was a name for a policy that acquired
its specific meaning within the context of three different visions of society.
Affirmative action, as supported by liberals, and later by some prag-
matic conservatives, meant a temporary policy of racial preference, as a way
of overcoming past injustice. In the context of this liberal ideal, affirmative
action was intended to bring about the integrationist goal of a color-blind
society. After a temporary period of racial preference, affirmative action
could be discarded when the inequities and infirmities caused by past racial
discrimination would be completely effaced. Thus affirmative action, from
this point of view, would be a policy arrangement designed to facilitate the
achievement of the goals of the original civil rights movement.
A second view of affirmative action acquires its meaning within the
context of an ethnically and racially pluralist society, in which each group
is allotted power and privilege in proportion to the percentages of that
group in the total population. It is this view that was reflected in the ar-
gument that, whereas Blacks constituted a certain percentage of society,
they were not found in corresponding percentages in the desirable positions
in society. The implication here is clearly that they should be so represented
in proportional fashion, not because that is the way it would work out, if
opportunity were equal, but because a distribution of that kind would con-
stitute the sine qua non of social justice in an ethnically and racially plu-
ralistic society. This idea of proportional racial representation was advanced
in the early phase of the Black Power movement when Black demands were
presented in the model of American pressure group politics (Martin,
1991:84-85).
The third phase of racial politics is African Americanism, in the con-
text of which affirmative action acquires yet a different connotation. The
new vision of society is neither that of equal opportunity in a color-blind
society, nor of proportionality in a pluralistic society. It is rather that of
racial preference in a society in which African Americans constitute a group
that is morally entitled to superior privilege. This is justified in historical
terms by the experience of slavery, which therefore merits morally legiti-
mate demands for reparations. The African-American summit meeting in
New Orleans in 1989 called for reparations from Whites for slavery, recall-
ing earlier demands of SNCC's James Forman for billions of dollars of
reparations from White churches, and CORE'S Roy Innis' call for $6 billion
dollars from the banking industry. In April 1989 the Detroit city council
called upon Congress to establish a $40 billion dollar educational fund for

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556 Spencer

the descendants of slaves, and Representative John Conyers submitted a

bill to Congress for reparations (Martin, 1991:97, 98). Thus, in this version,
the demand for affirmative action transcends the demand for group equality
with a claim to special preference based on past suffering, rather than of
present inequality. This is a claim for a moral primacy of entitlement with
respect to the group distribution of privileges in society.
This last-mentioned version of affirmative action is a feature of the
same complex of consciousness from which emanates the self-designation
"African American," and the species of multiculturalism that is referred t
as "Afrocentrism." This formation of consciousness addresses itself to the
construction of an identity, which has been an especially difficult problem
for the Black community. This has been symbolized by the shifting, and
sometimes contentious, history of the way in which the Black-Negro-Col-
ored-African American community has defined and identified itself. The
politics of naming has been nothing other than a politics of identity crea-
tion, and this has especially marked the appearance of Afrocentrism. The
latter has been for African Americans the identity-building, nation-creatin
work of fashioning a national history and staking out the hallmarks of a
national culture.
The evolution from Afrocentrism to multiculturalism follows logically.
It is through the process of education that the nation creates its identity
-in both the cultural and political senses-in the minds of its citizens.
Seen in this way, multiculturalism, as we consider it here from the African
American perspective, is minority nationalism. American nationalism repu-
diates multiculturalism as competing forms of nationalism, a dynamic that
follows from the ethnocentric logic of all nationalisms, whether majority o
minority. The difference between American nationalism and African
American nationalism is in their respective power positions, not in their
philosophies of education. Nationalism, as an exclusive form of identity,
seeks to indoctrinate the young with its nationalistic worldviews. If Ameri-
can nationalism were in the deprived power position of African American
nationalism, it would advocate multiculturalism, and vice-versa. The anal-
ogy can be made here between the political and rhetorical positions of re
ligions. When religions are able to do so they repress other religions, as
competing forms of belief, in the name of the "one true faith." However,
when they are politically weak, and are themselves the victims of repression,
they call for toleration and religious freedom, which is the religious equiva
lent of multiculturalism. The rhetoric of multiculturalism, which advances
its cause in the name of "diversity" and "inclusiveness," must therefore be
suspect. The observable dynamics of the minority nationalisms that advance
under this rhetorical cover raise the question as to whether these values

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Multiculturalism 557

are authentic, or whether they are artifacts of the power relationship be-
tween competing nationalisms.

THE OTHER MULTICULTURALISMS

The foregoing analysis traces the origins of multiculturali

identity search of African Americans who were historically exc
the American national identity. African Americans have played
prominent role in this movement because of their unique histo
riences and their unique position in American society. Lati
Americans, and Asian Americans have also joined in the mu
movement, albeit in less prominent ways. Something should al
in this connection with respect to the position of the "Whi
whose situation - as concerns the politics of identity - has yet
and unique dynamic.
As in the case of the African American community, labels a
tant, because they indicate a stage of collective identity-develo
emergence of the label "Native American" is therefore signific
it indicates an emerging identity-awareness on the part of Nat
cans, i.e., "Indians," that transcends tribal identity. The develo
Native American nationalism is not yet as fulsome as is that of
American nationalism, but it promises to move in that directio
of the common history shared by Native Americans, and their
present circumstances. The common history is their experience
settlers, which has, admittedly, been a most unsavory one tha
treachery, genocide, and eviction from their homelands. Their p
mon circumstance is, most importantly, the fact that they are exclu
the collective American national identity. In addition they face,
the problems of reservation life, and a distinctive legal identity
lationships with the national state. Their nation-building prospe
come closer to that of the African Americans than any oth
American society. That the latter have been impelled to create
identity, and that they have been able to do so, suggests that Na
cans may be able to do the same.
We should also note the tensions, or differences, between t
and the "new" national identities that might be involved here.
Americans have thus far continued to identify themselves in ter
tribal identities, as Mohawks, Cree, Oneida, etc. Tribal identiti
been the only identity for the Native Americans, and the thre
identities from the detribalizing tendencies of modern culture
intensified the urgency felt by these groups to preserve and rev

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558 Spencer

old tribal identities. This can be seen, for example, in the struggle over
specific lands, which are regarded by the Native Americans as essential
components of their tribal identities, and which are often threatened by
the encroaching American society. The development of a fully articulated
identity as Native Americans, if it should ever occur, would involve a dia-
lectical tension with the old tribal identities.
It is predicted that the Latinos, or Hispanics, will shortly displace Af-
rican Americans as the largest group that is not Euro-American. The full
significance of this must be evaluated in terms of the dynamics of identity
politics. The comment is often made that Latin Americans will not fuse
into a collective "Latino" identity, because of the many differences that
separate them. The logic of this observation is, however, suspect because
every group that has forged a national identity has done so from the same
position of existing initially as disparate, and often contending, communi-
ties. The proper question to ask of the prospects for the emergence of a
Latino identity concern the circumstances and commonalities that might
lead to such a transformation. In the case of the Latino community these
prospects look promising, although this by no means guarantees that the
transformation from the old national identities of Mexican, Cuban, Do-
minican, Columbian, etc., to a collective identity of Latino, or Hispanic,
will inevitably occur.
The possession of both a common language and a common religious
culture powerfully facilitates the development of a distinctive national con-
sciousness among Latinos. They also share the common situation of having
to deal with the special problems of the use of Spanish in schools, at work,
and in their dealings with government. Their numbers in the United States
have created a special Spanish-speaking market of radio, television, and
film. Against these commonalities, are their distinctive national identities,
which are "old" identities, brought as memories from the lands of their
origin. But these old identities are less significant for second- and third-
generation Latinos, who find themselves with a common culture, facing
non-Latinos as an "outgroup," and experience a common situation of deal-
ing with an "Anglo" culture as Latinos. In sum, their prospects of acquiring
a new collective national identity as Latinos appears favorable.
The Asian Americans appear least likely of all of these groups to
acquire a new collective identity in the United States. They are widely sepa-
rated by barriers of language, religion, and situation. Thus, the situation of
Japanese and Chinese Americans differs considerably from those of Cam-
bodians, Vietnamese, and Asian Indians. Whether or not they will retain
their old national identities will depend on whether, and to what extent,
they will be incorporated into an American cultural identity. If they con-
tinue to be excluded from an American national cultural identity they will

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Multiculturalism 559

have a substantial basis for retaining-in a highly modified form -t

sense of distinct national identities, as "ethnicities," on the American sce
Thus, it should be clear that the identity-forming prospects of th
various minority groups of color differ widely. That the African Ameri
have moved furthest in this direction is a consequence of their special h
tory and the identity deficits they have suffered because of this. Remo
from their old tribal identities, they have been denied entry into the Ameri
can national identity, and have shared a common experience of enslave
ment, followed by subordination and discrimination. Segregation
enabled them to form a distinct African American culture that embraces
"Black English," a distinctive emotional religious style, a highly inventi
musical culture, and cuisine and styles of family life.

MULTICULTURALISM AND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

Political correctness resulted from a confluence of other streams of

liberation, including those of the other peoples of color, flowing into t
post-civil rights movement of Black Power, and subsequently the devel
ment of "African Americanism," i.e., the identity of African American, a
the cultural movement of Afrocentrism. These other movements included
feminism, gay liberation, and the movement for the interests of the hand
capped. These movements joined, in an informal way, to generate a com-
mon political mood of victimization, moral indignation, and a self-righteou
hostility against the common enemy -the White male. All of these grou
felt oppressed by the ruling White male elite of American society or, in
some cases, by Western civilization in general.
This pervasive sense of victimization has led to an emphasis on the
sufferings of the group that have been inflicted by evil powers. This is rh
torically captured in the use of the politically potent epithets "racism" an
"sexism," which are unanswerable indictments of blame, leveled by innocen
victims against malevolent ruling elites. Political correctness has sometime
imaginatively extended the array of victims, e.g., at Smith College in Mas
sachusetts:

Smith's office of student affairs distributes a sheet to all students listing proscribed
attitudes including "Ableism -oppressors of the differently abled by the
temporarily able," "Ageism," and "Lookism," defined as, among other things, "the
construction of a standard for beauty/attractiveness." (Siegel, 1991:38)

Political correctness then produces a politics of moral drama, involv-

ing the oppressed and the oppressor, in which the oppressed demand rec-
ognition of their suffering. Thus, in hearings before the California State
Board of Education concerning textbook revision, with the aims of mul-

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560 Spencer

ticulturalism in mind, this theme of victimization and suffering was made

clear:

At issue were textbooks responsive to the new curriculum. Polish-Americans

demanded that any reference to Hitler's Holocaust must be accompanied by
accounts of equivalent genocide suffered by Polish Christians. Armenian-Americans
sought coverage of Turkish massacres; Turkish-Americans objected. Though Black
historians testified that the treatment of Black history was exemplary, Afrocentrists
said the textbooks would lead to "textbook genocide." Moslems complained that
an illustration of an Islamic warrior with a raised scimitar stereotyped Moslems as
"terrorists."
One group after another . . . insisted that its forebears had suffered more than
anyone else in history. (Schlesinger, 1991:1)

In this moral dialogue the victims are morally superior to their op-
pressors, who are generally White, and often particularly White males, de-
pending on the group leveling the charge. This is seen in the definition of
"racism" according to the lexicon of political correctness. Only Whites can
be racist, and are intrinsically so, whether they are prepared to acknowledge
this fact or not:

It is important to recognize how scholastic and self-serving the definition of racism

that holds sway at Oberlin is: "people of color" cannot be racist because they lack
power. Because they do have power Whites are intrinsically racist. (Weisberg,
1991:23)

The corollary to this is White guilt, which is often effectively induced

by the pressures of political correctness. The author of the above-cited ar-
ticle also explores this matter:
While on campus, I participated in an anti-racism seminar required for the fifty
or so upper-classmen who serve as counselors in dorms. The session, called
"Fighting Oppression and Celebrating Diversity" was sponsored by the dean's office
and led by Bill Shipton, a dean of diversity education at Indiana University. Through
films, discussion, and role-playing games, Shipton reiterated the litany I heard
constantly while I was at Oberlin: All Whites are racist, and only they can be racist.
Shipton instructs participants to "unlearn" racism not through efforts at
colorblindness, but through heightened consciousness of race. To admit one's racism
is a sign of strength and growth. According to Shipton's "onion theory," Whites
must continue to strip off layers of inherited racism through their whole lives.
(Weisberg, 1991:23)

And this instruction is evidently effective in causing Whites to inter-

nalize their guilt in the rhetoric of political correctness:
At a brown rice and beans dinner to discuss the college's policy on hate crimes,
I asked a group of white students whether they were racists. All acknowledged that
they were, because of their "white skin privilege." One said that those of his peers
who couldn't admit their racism were "in denial." (Weisberg, 1991:23)

Once Whites have mastered this rhetoric they are equipped to enter
into a moral dialogue with victimized groups in which they present them-
selves as culpable for the sins that have afflicted the oppressed. Thus,

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Multiculturalism 561

Thomas Sobol, Education Commissioner of New York State, in present

himself at the Second National Conference on the Infusion of African and
African-American Content in the High School Curriculum in Atlanta
Georgia, pleaded the following:
He'd fought a lonely battle, as he portrayed it, to support the conference's
objectives as education commissioner in New York State. But he realized his limits:
"I'm a White middle-aged male, I can't help that." (Sullivan, 1990:20)
Mr. Sobol's reference to his being a "White male" is a key focus of the guilt
rhetoric of political correctness. The University of Texas at Austin, for example,
has institutionalized this theme in its course of English instruction by organizing a
remedial writing course around the theme of "White male racism," which included
a tract listing "forty-six varieties of White male privilege" (Siegel, 1991:38).

Political correctness appears simultaneously with multiculturalism on

the scene of ethnic and racial politics. The latter reflects the ethos of blam
and guilt that characterizes the former. Thus multiculturalism does not
place all cultural traditions on an equal moral plane. The cultures of the
people of color, crushed by 600 years of Western conquest and imperial
exploitation, are morally superior to the Western culture of the Euro
Americans. This animus is seen clearly in Afrocentrism, which devalues
Western culture by claiming it to be derivative from the putatively African
culture of Egypt. The further implication is that Westerners have long bee
aware of this fact, but have deliberately distorted the truth because of thei
desire to be preeminent. It also appears in the stated unwillingness of the
Afrocentrists to rely on the testimony of Western historians concerning the
facts of history. Politically correct multiculturalism therefore develops a
counterhistory in place of a Western history that is regarded as mendaciou
and morally defective.
This moral devaluation of the West also appears in the counterhis-
torical view of Afrocentrism that repudiates the Constitution because of it
recognition of slavery, and its revisionist view of the founding fathers as
slaveholders, or as racists who were tolerant of slaveholding.
When the moral animus of political correctness is added to the char-
acter of multiculturalism as minority nationalism, the rhetorical claims of
multiculturalism to speak in the name of "diversity," of a "curriculum of
inclusion," and the broadening of the ethnocentrism of Eurocentrism be-
come suspect. A respectable case could be made that this is, in fact, a re-
versal of the actual truth of the situation, which is that it is multiculturalism
that is ethnocentric and disinclined to accept diversity, in the name of the
liberal value of tolerance, and that it is Eurocentrism that is cosmopolitan
and inclusive.

The three forms of consciousness that are presently contending on

the American scene-American nationalism, multiculturalism as minority
nationalism, and cosmopolitan liberalism -each contain their own distinct

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562 Spencer

visions of American society, with distinct implications for the direction of

that society. American nationalism defines American society in terms of an
American identity that elevates a White Christian culture to the status of
a majority culture. This culture excludes peoples of color on racial grounds,
and relegates them to an inferior political, economic, and social status.
Minority nationalist multiculturalism presents a vision of a multina-
tional society whose distinct national elements have no common bond of
identity among them that would link them into a single supranational entity.
This is separatist pluralism with a vengeance, to which is added the moral
animus of political correctness. This establishes a moral inequality between
the White Euro-Americans and the peoples of color, reversing the historical
status relationships that previously prevailed. Now the "first shall be the
last, and the last shall be the first," i.e., the minority nationalist vision would
create a society in which privilege would be distributed on a racial basis,
such that the peoples of color would receive varieties of racial preference
in employment, and the redistribution of wealth through government ac-
tion, education, and political representation.
The cosmopolitan vision can accommodate either a society in which
there is a majority culture, or a society in which an extensive pluralism
prevails. In both cases the American identity is established by an affiliation
with the democratic political values of a state that is based on the consent
of the governed, the rule of law, human rights, and free association. The
liberal vision thus devalues cultural identity, as being irrelevant to the es-
sence of the American identity. In place of cultural nationalism it advocates
tolerance, and in place of a cultural national identity it values allegiance
to the universal values of liberal cosmopolitanism. The latter could thus
easily accommodate an "integrationist pluralism" (Glazer, 1983:115-117)
characterized by a tolerant cohabitation of identities, all of which would
be fused into an overarching American political identity.
These tendencies of national identity and society have competed with
each other in the course of American history, and are doing so now, and
at various times they have had more or less success in actualizing portions
of their respective visions into the institutional arrangements of American
society. Thus, American nativism has pursued its aspirations in anti-immi-
gration legislation, in legal and de facto institutionalized segregation, in in-
creased naturalization requirements, and in creating a mythic American
history, e.g., along the lines of Parson Weems' biography of Washington,
which celebrated the virtues of WASP America. Cosmopolitan liberalism
has stoutly resisted these pressures from American nativism by campaigning
for open immigration, liberal naturalization procedures, and respect for the
indigenous cultures of immigrant communities. The abolitionist movement

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Multiculturalism 563

against slavery should also be credited to the spirit of cosmopolitan l

alism.

In the post-World War II period the minority nationalisms of peoples

of color have made their presence felt in the liberal atmosphere of decolo-
nization and anti-fascism, with the dissolution of the European empires that
occurred at that time. The early, purely liberal, phase of the civil rights
movement matured into the more aggressive varieties of minority nation-
alisms, with Black Power and Afrocentrism in the vanguard. The admixture
of the moral politics of political correctness has led to an incipient insti-
tutional transformation of American life that reflects the ethos of this mor-
ally assertive multiculturalism.
This appears in the form of what Glazer refers to as a "Western"
pattern of the organization of society in which groups enjoy legally defined
statuses- in the manner analogous to that which once prevailed in Euro-
pean estate societies-in which certain groups are legally privileged with
respect to others (Glazer, 1983:319). The most discussed of these arrange-
ments is, of course, that of affirmative action, with its controversial impli-
cations of "racial preferences" and "quotas." Although quotas are not
legally called for, the "disparate impact" doctrine of the Griggs v. Duke
Power decision (1971) implicitly mandated quotas in a practical sense, be-
cause the de facto existence of disparities became grounds for a suit, in
which the burden of proof was placed on the employer as defendant. To
avoid such suits, employers would have to avoid the occurrence of such
disparities, and such action necessarily implies the adoption of a quota, i.e.,
a set of employment practices that guarantees that disparities will not ap-
pear. Moreover, in a subsequent controversy over a civil rights bill in 1990-
1991, to return to the standard of Griggs after its reversal by a later decision,
both Republicans and Democrats supported the return to the "disparate
impact" standard, differing only in the specifics of the standards of proof.

THE FUTURE OF IDENTITY POLITICS IN AMERICA

Two commentators on these matters-Arthur Schlesing

Nathan Glazer-speaking from different points of view, h
faith that the divisive tendencies of multiculturalism will eventua
come. Schlesinger points to tendencies of "Blacks" (who, he a
this designation to "African American"), Hispanics, and Asian
to desire assimilation into the (White) mainstream Amer
(Schlesinger, 1991:79-80). Glazer is similarly optimistic about
lative power of American society (Glazer, 1991:22).

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564 Spencer

This optimism that foresees the decline of adversary identity-politics

in American society is a well-meaning extrapolation of the American past
into the American future. It may well be that these prognostications will
turn out to be correct. But, if this is the case, it will not be because the
future will be like the past, but because the cohesive forces in American
society will prevail, notwithstanding that circumstances have profoundly
changed. In several important respects American society will face novel
problems in attempting to forge a common American identity from a di-
verse racial and ethnic raw material. The "New, New Immigration" of the
latter decades of the 20th century differs significantly from the original New
Immigration of the post-Civil War period. Never before has America re-
ceived a stream of immigration from a single linguistic and religious group,
as homogenous in these respects as is the present Latino immigration to
the United States. The Mexican portion of this immigration is also unique
in that the homeland lies just across the border, over which it is able to
exercise a continuing cultural influence on the immigrants. This New, New
Immigration differs also in that it emanates from non-European cultures
whose linguistic and religious traditions -in the case of the Asian immi-
grants - are further removed from those of the old settlers than were those
of earlier streams of immigration.
The present patterns of identity-politics in America also differ from
those of the past in that the threat to an inclusive American identity comes
from the creation of new identities, rather than the unwillingness to surren-
der old identities. During World War I, and the period immediately follow-
ing, the nativists campaigned against "hyphenated-Americans," and called
for "100 per cent Americanism" (Higham, 1955:8). They were dealing with
the reluctance of new immigrants to shed their old identities. In the case
of the Latinos, African Americans, and Native Americans, it is the synthesis
of new identities that is at issue, in response to the particular circumstances
that these groups face in contemporary American society. Both the "beyond
the melting pot" thesis, and the resurgent melting pot thesis-that extol
the assimilative power of American society with respect to the old identities
miss the mark here.
This observation applies with particular force to African Americans, for
whom the construction of a new identity is most advanced. The patterns of
segregation and identity-construction that are visible now differ from those
that occurred in the past. There are indications of a self-segregation currently
developing on the heels of the "resegregation" that followed the massive up-
heavals of school integration in the 1960s and 1970s (Traub, 1991). The seg-
regation of the inner cities also represents a new phenomenon in that it is
accompanied by the development of an aggressive youthful ghetto culture
competing for primacy with assimilating tendencies of the Black middle

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Multiculturalism 565

classes. This, in turn, is linked to the sharpening class divisions of Ame

society between a diminishing class of wealthy Americans who repudiat
distributive taxation, and a swelling class of poor Americans who hav
recent presidential politics, been successfully beguiled by the conflict of so
liberalism and social conservatism into ignoring the tendency for the conce
tration of wealth that works so profoundly to their disadvantage.
These and other factors must be evaluated in the unique historical
figuration of the moment when considering the prospects for the Ame
identity. Demographics will play an important role here in affecting
"pushes" and "pulls" of immigration, and the ethnic and racial balanc
that immigration. From the horizon of the present moment we see expandi
population trends among peoples of color abroad, and declining fertility rat
of White Americans in relation to both Third World populations abroad
Latino and Black populations in America. Crucial in this complex mix
elements will also be America's economic future. In American history,
in the history of other nations, the severest tensions of identity politics h
been exacerbated by moods of economic pessimism, and-convers
have been mitigated by economic moods of expansive self-confidence.

CONCLUSION

At the moment, all we can do - in lieu of being able to pred

this identity-struggle will eventually go-is focus on the presen
of the identity-forming contexts, and observe the tendencies tha
fested in these toward the integration and disintegration of the
national identity. In conclusion, I catalogue here some of the d
ward the survival of such an identity, beyond the manifest m
might be caused by multiculturalism. These include the followin

1. The development of a demographic imbalance by wa

immigration of substantial numbers of persons from
Spanish-speaking Caribbean and South American count
may create a pressure to rupture linguistically the publi
a tendency that is already evident in Florida and elsewhe
thus precipitate a struggle over the public culture of the
has been seen in Quebec, Belgium, India, and Spain. Ea
of this are the controversy over bilingual education a
movement to make the English language the official lang
the United States (e.g., the movement known as "U.S. En
2. The segregation of symbolic communities of media-m
minority cultures by way of minority magazines, r

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566 Spencer

television outlets, which is particularly evident in the cases of

Latinos and African Americans. Because these are directed at the
creation of new identities, they may prove to be more enduring
than were superficially similar symbolic communities that were
created to preserve the old identities of earlier immigrants.
3. The concentration of immigrant Mexican populations in th
Southwest, such as to give rise to an irredentist movement in tho
areas, conjoined with such a movement in Mexico.
4. The segregation of an "underclass" of African Americans in the
inner cities, accelerating and intensifying the process of creatin
an African American counteridentity to an American identity. Th
danger of this may be intensified by the flight of the middle classes,
both Black and White, away from these areas, thus shrinking th
tax base and impoverishing the web of public communities that ar
indispensable to the integrating process.
5. The failure of the economic integration of the peoples of color,
such that inequities are perceived in racial and ethnic terms, th
aggravating the sense of social injustice on the basis of grou
membership.
6. A decline in the economic optimism of all groups, thus intensifying
all of the baleful tendencies of identity-politics.
7. The loss of the liberal rhetoric of civility and tolerance that has
softened the sharp edges of intergroup conflict in America. This
would be marked by the failure of leaders from all groups to speak
out publicly and forcefully against outrages and incivilities
practiced against members of groups other than their own. The
danger here is that the spirit of political correctness may persuade
the leaders of the peoples of color that such an obligation falls
only upon the leadership of the culpable White males, and that
the chronicle of their own suffering exempts them from moral
responsibility in this regard.

REFERENCES

Bellah, Robert N. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

1980 "Civil religion: The American case." In Press.
Robert N. Bellah and Phillip E. Ham- 1991 "In defense of multiculturalism." The
mond, (eds.), Varieties of Civil Religion: New Republic (September 2) 22.
13. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row. Gosset, Thomas F.
Glazer, Nathan 1970 Race: The History of an Idea in
1983 "The problem of ethnic studies." In America. New York: Schocken
Ethnic Dilemmas: 1964-1982: 115-117. Books.

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Higham, John Sobol, Thomas

1955 Strangers in the Land: Patterns of 1991 The New Republic (July 15 and 22) 5.
American Nativism: 1860-1925. Steinberg, Stephen
Martin, Ben L. 1989 The Ethnic Myth: Race, Ethnicity, and
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America." Political Science Quarterly con Press.
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Myrdal, Gunnar, with Richard Sterner and 1990 "Racism 101." The New Republic
Arnold Rose (Nov. 26).
1994 The Negro in America. New York: Time
Harper & Bros. 1991 "Whose America?" (July 8) 12-13.
Schlesinger, Arthur Jr. Traub, James
1991 The Disuniting of America. Whittle 1991 "Oklahoma City: Separate and equal."
Direct Books. The Atlantic, 268 (Sept.).
Siegel, Fred Weisberg, Jacob
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