{"id":238,"date":"2017-12-18T19:33:10","date_gmt":"2017-12-18T19:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/se-asiacenter.org\/?p=238"},"modified":"2018-12-21T01:23:01","modified_gmt":"2018-12-21T01:23:01","slug":"cultural-separatism-danger-for-america-newsletter-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/se-asiacenter.org\/index.php\/2017\/12\/18\/cultural-separatism-danger-for-america-newsletter-3\/","title":{"rendered":"CULTURAL SEPARATISM DANGER FOR AMERICA | Newsletter 3"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is one of a series of newsletters written by Peter Porr and Paul Sjordal between September 1993 and December 1995 for the purpose of explaining the South-East Asia Center\u2019s Building Bridge\u2019s<\/strong> objectives, philosophy, and approach to learning.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building Bridges Newsletter<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Newsletter Three<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CULTURAL\nSEPARATISM <\/strong>DANGER FOR\nAMERICA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do the\n\u201cliberal\u201d Mother Jones<\/em> and the \u201cconservative\u201d American Legion<\/em>\nmagazines have in common?  Both recently\npublished articles warn of the dangerous role cultural separatists are playing\nin building chasms between ethnic groups, thereby dividing America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The December,\n1993 American Legion<\/em> interview with two-time Pulitzer Prize winner\nArthur Schlesinger concerning his most recent book – The Disuniting of\nAmerica<\/em>, and the Mother Jones<\/em> November\/December, 1993 article by\nPulitzer Prize winning Stanford professor Dale Maharidge both warn of the\ndangers of cultural separatism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to\nMaharidge, \u201cAmerica is segregating into camps beyond any past class or race\ndifferences.  This separatism is tearing\napart whatever bit of cohesiveness the mythical melting pot gave us, developing\ninto a free-for-all rainbow of hate pitting Koreans, blacks, Latinos, Hmong,\nwhites, Vietnamese, and other groups against each other.\u201d He warns, \u201cThe 1992\nLos Angeles riots may have been the warm-up act for some very disagreeable\ntimes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BONDS OF\nCOHESION FRAGILE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schlesinger\nblames multicultural extremists for a \u201ccult of ethnicity\u201d which he says,\n\u201cfosters separatism, exaggerates differences, identifies antagonisms and drives\neven deeper the awful wedges between races and ethnicities.  The bonds of national cohesion are fragile\nalready,\u201d he continues; \u201cMutual hostility and suspicions are bound to emerge in\na society bent on defining itself in terms of competing groups.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South-East Asia\nCenter concurs.  A team of educators at\nthe Center are developing a multicultural educational approach to build bridges\nbetween ethnic groups instead of creating chasms.  The main thrust of the Center\u2019s philosophy is\ncentered on stressing our similarities rather than our differences and teaching\neveryone how to learn to get along better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of unwittingly\nteaching ethnic groups to rival each other through Eurocentric, Afrocentric, or\nother ethnocentric glorifications of ethnic histories and cultures, SEAC’s\napproach is to teach realistic histories and understanding of cultures which\nshow that, as historian Schlesinger puts it, \u201cAll cultures have been\namalgamations of good and evil.\u201d SEAC’s approach teaches that we all come from\nthe same impure roots with lots of traces of greed, hostility, brutality and\ninhumanity to fellow human beings.  But\nwe all have histories, as well, of peace loving, industriousness, struggle for\nsurvival and other more constructive traits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SEAC does not\nbelieve that great culture equals vast empires which were based upon intra and\ninterethnic conquest.  This is not only demeaning\nto small cultures such as the Southeast Asian Hmong hill tribesmen — many of\nwhom are now refugees in the U.S. — or Arctic Inuit Eskimos. (These peoples\nacted in a more \u201ccivilized\u201d fashion by choosing to withdraw into the hills and\nArctic regions rather than to group into large armies to conquer others as did\nthe Greeks, Romans, English, French, Spanish, Chinese and many others.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are our schools\nunwittingly teaching that interethnic war and conquest is a value and that\nseeking peace is an attribute much less desirable?  What does the traditional school celebration\nof Columbus Day teach children about interethnic sensitivity and\nunderstanding?  What does it teach them about\ninterethnic conquest?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TRADITIONAL\nTEACHING<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And does\ntraditional school teaching of Thanksgiving teach understanding for the native\nAmericans who were not and still are not treated with understanding or\nsensitivity by the \u201cthankful\u201d newcomers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although\nSchlesinger believes that a Eurocentric melting pot (an oxymoron?) and\ncurricular foundation is not such a bad thing, SEAC stresses that various\ncultures around the world have come to solve common basic human needs in widely\nvarying ways and, as Schlesinger would agree, are all \u201camalgamations of good\nand evil.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

European\ndemocracy and self governance doesn’t work for all cultures in all stages of\ndevelopment, nor always in our own Western cultures of the twentieth\ncentury.  Abolition of slavery is far\nfrom an American invention.  In fact,\nmany high and mighty morals, values and ideologies – democracy, individuality,\ncreativity, free enterprise, to name a few – are sometimes deep down\nhypocritical, ethnically insensitive and downright dysfunctional in other\nsocieties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This topic will\nbe treated in more depth in the next and later newsletters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SALAD BOWL NOT\nMELTING POT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Center\nbelieves that the \u201csalad bowl\u201d metaphor is a better metaphor and goal than the\n\u201cmelting pot.\u201d  Americans do not have to\nbecome homogeneous to be good Americans. The separatists imply that we can make\na good salad by either keeping all the ingredients separated or by encasing\neach ingredient in plastic.  Neither\napproach makes salad.  The Center\nbelieves that each individual can flavor his or her own identity while serving\nto enhance the total unified flavor and quality of the salad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SCHLESINGER: <\/strong>\u201cTRADITIONAL EDUCATION INJURED PEOPLE BY UNDERMINING THEIR SELF-ESTEEM AND DEPRIVING THEM OF ROLE MODELS FROM THEIR OWN ETHNIC MINORITIES. THE TASK OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS ISN\u2019T TO PERPETUATE SEPARATISM, BUT TO SHOW KIDS WHAT THEY HOLD IN COMMON AS AMERICANS.\u201d Note<\/em>: SEAC<\/em> would substitute the word human beings for Americans.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI BELIEVE THE DESIRE TO TAKE FULL\nADVANTAGE OF THE\nOPPORTUNITIES IN AMERICAN LIFE WILL OVERCOME THE APPEAL OF THE IDEOLOGUES FOR\nCOMPARTMENTALIZED, GHETTOIZED EXISTENCE.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MAHARIDGE:   <\/strong>\u201cI DON’T THINK IT\u2019S INCOMPATIBLE TO BE\nPROGRESSIVE AND QUESTION THE CULTURAL SEPARATISTS.  IN THE CURRENT ATMOSPHERE OF LEFT-RIGHT,\nANTI-INTELLECTUAL POLARIZATION, ANY INQUIRY IS LABELED AS RACISM.  BUT CULTURAL SEPARATISTS CAN BE JUST AS\nRACIST AS ANY WHITE\nREDNECKS, AND SOMETIMES CRIPPLE THE VERY PEOPLE THEY WANT TO HELP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIF RECENT EVENTS ARE AN INDICATION, TODAYS IMMIGRANTS MAY FACE A BACKLASH EQUAL TO OR WORSE THAN THE ANTI-IMMIGRATION MOVEMENTS OF THE 1880S AND 192OS- AND THE BASHING COULD EASILY EXTEND TO MINORITIES ROOTED HERE FOR GENERATIONS.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

View Building Bridges Newsletter Archive Summary<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do the \u201cliberal\u201d Mother Jones and the \u201cconservative\u201d American Legion magazines have in common? Both recently published articles warn of the dangerous role cultural separatists are playing in building chasms between ethnic groups, thereby dividing America. Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[77,79,74,76,64,67,81,65,75,78],"class_list":["post-238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-building-bridges-newsletter-archive","tag-america","tag-building-bridges","tag-cultural","tag-danger","tag-education","tag-learning","tag-peter-porr","tag-philosophy","tag-seoparatism","tag-teaching"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/se-asiacenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/se-asiacenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/se-asiacenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/se-asiacenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/se-asiacenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/se-asiacenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":272,"href":"https:\/\/se-asiacenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions\/272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/se-asiacenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/se-asiacenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/se-asiacenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}