Fear of a ‘Multicultural’ Nation

[marmar]

from Truthdig:



Fear of a ‘Multicultural’ Nation

Posted on Feb 10, 2010
By Marcia Alesan Dawkins


Last Thursday night former Congressman and 2008 Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo made opening-night remarks at the inaugural National Tea Party Convention in Nashville. Tancredo fired verbal shots at Barack Obama, Sen. John McCain and “the cult of multiculturalism,” stating that people who “could not spell the word vote or say it in English” had elected the president. And that Obama’s election reveals the need for us to “have a civics literacy test before people can vote in this country.”

Tancredo is wrong. United States political history reveals our long-standing tradition in this area. In “Before the Mayflower,” Lerone Bennett Jr. recounts how literacy tests were first employed at the federal level as part of the immigration process in 1917. Southern state legislatures adopted literacy tests once African-Americans were granted citizenship rights under the 15th Amendment, as part of the voter registration process. As practiced, the literacy test became notorious for denying suffrage to African-Americans. Adopted by a number of Southern states, the tests were applied in a patently unfair manner and were used, along with the poll tax, to disfranchise many literate Southern blacks while allowing many illiterate Southern whites to vote.

The literacy test—combined with other discriminatory practices that kept African-Americans from attending schools, from particular modes of transportation, from attaining mortgages and from careers in public service—effectively disfranchised the vast majority of people of color in the South from the 1890s until after the middle of the 20th century. Southern states abandoned the literacy test only when forced to by federal legislation in the 1960s. This legalized discrimination caused suffering and turmoil for all parties involved, especially during the slavery period and the Jim and Jane Crow segregation era. Tancredo’s call for the return of literacy and civics tests suggests that those (black and brown) who voted for Obama are incapable of making informed political decisions and are influenced primarily by identity politics. Moreover, it denies the fact that the majority of voters who elected Obama were white.

Then there’s the issue of affirmative action. Like many other reactionary politicians, Tancredo has fallen victim to the misperception that affirmative action policies have done away with institutional racism and moved society beyond equal access to opportunity and into an era of “reverse racism” and discrimination. This has resulted in anti-affirmative action legislation such as California’s Proposition 209, Washington’s Initiative 200 and Ward Connerly’s various racial privacy initiatives. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/fear_of_a_multicultural_nation_20100210/

[Mopar151]

1. Some great comments at the link!

What it comes down to for me -
"Their America" never really existed, except in misty nostalgia. They want "cred" - and perference - for being "the right kind of white", for portraying a traditional gender role, for going to the Blabtist church to kowtow to Jeebus, for speaking a limited vocabulary of "English", for having the right hairstyle.
I interviewed for a small medical manufacturer a few years ago, as a toolroom machinist. The subject was delicately broached, about how I woudl adjust to a predominantly Portugese workforce - could I stand World Cup soccer on the shop radio, for instance.
I replied "As long as they save me a little chorizo, I'm good!" "Chorizo?" " Portugese spicy sausage!" "I don't know the names, but the food is GOOD!"

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. The comments about Tancredo are right on, the comments about Afirmative Action are nonsense n/t

[Goldstein1984]

3. Well, I think the "New World" was already multicultural before

Europeans arrived. And if it wasn't multicultural before, it certainly was after. I think Tancredo is referring to the Ruling Class. The Working Class has always been what he condemns. And there, I believe, is the real issue. He wants a nation of the Ruling Class, by the Ruling Class, and for the Ruling Class--conveniently mostly White, like him.

I watched the video of Tancredo's speech. It was just pure racism and classism. He was speaking to an audience of racists and classists, most too stupid to know they are pawns, so he was applauded.