America has been uniquely known as a cultural ‘melting pot’ where millions came to embrace the ideals of equal opportunity, freedom and liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. New arrivals learned English often taught by employers and embraced the immigration process to learn the basics of the nation’s history while adding their uniqueness to the ‘pot.’
At first, if you could just get here from abroad and pass immigration health screening and such then you could stay if you could survive. There were no attractive government entitlements.
Any charity for those struggling was provided by churches, nonprofits, family and friends. If people could not survive here financially then they returned to their countries of origin.
The exception was the transporting of captured people from Africa and other countries and sold as slave labor both in America and throughout the world. Once the Civil War freed the slaves here then there was an offer of passage to Liberia, West Africa but few responded. Nearly all former slaves born and raised here now considered this country home.
Successive generations descending from immigrants referred to themselves as Americans, not Russian-Americans, Italian-Americans or any other hyphenated title. Even those who came here first, being incorrectly labelled ‘Indians’ by future arrivals, eventually called themselves Americans or Native Americans (a misnomer since they merely migrated here before the others).
During the 1960’s, the government forced integration, forbidding segregation of blacks from others whether in restaurants, bathrooms, housing, transportation, schools etc. However, after spending billions in enforcement efforts, liberals today beginning with university lefty intellectuals are undermining the idea of America as a melting pot and are igniting a movement to return to a nation of tribes now referred to as multiculturalism.
Segregation lives on. This February is Black History Month while of course there is no White History Month. There is Black Entertainment Television (BET) and BET Awards where only blacks perform and win. There is the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and NAACP Image Awards where only Blacks compete and win.
Some universities and colleges now offer black-only housing and graduation ceremonies. Students no longer reside and graduate together. If whites requested the same segregation there would be a firestorm of racism charges.
University quotas are still in place today offering entry to low performing students of favored minorities, while rejecting higher grade-point applicants of other ethnicities. It’s the same in some work environments. However, there are different cultural rules for professional sports.
For 2018, ‘People of Color’ made up 80.7% of the National Basketball Association (NBA), more than 70% in the National Football League (NFL) and 42.5% in Major League Baseball (MLB). When it comes to profit-making there are no laws insisting that 5’6” white guys play for the NBA or awkward 125 lb. Asians for the NFL. Basketball icon Jerry West now working for the LA Clippers says most new white prospects just can’t compete so they don’t.
Another example of our cultural rules, several years back a college intramural volleyball team called the “White Guys” was prohibited from campus competition for using the ‘provocative’ name. Of course, “Black Guys or Girls” would have worked just fine.
So, due to the left’s push for multiculturalism we return to segregation along with titles like African-American and Mexican-American where many of the minorities mock and snipe about the country they prosper in though no one is holding them here against their will. We are trending toward looking more like multi-lingual India as we now compensate for people not learning English.
Multi-culturalism calls for re-education programs where diversity managers indoctrinate students, faculty members, employees, managers and executives on what's politically correct thinking. Part of that lesson is non-judgmentalism, teaching that one lifestyle is just as worthy as another and that all cultures and their values are morally equivalent.
However, all cultures, beliefs, and ways are not equally worthy or moral. Western values are superior to other norms regardless of who employs them. Values of reason and individual rights have produced unprecedented health, life expectancy, wealth and comfort for the ordinary person. There's an indisputable positive connection between liberty and standards of living.
American multiculturalism is an evil that produces intolerance, restricted speech and expression, and leads to every type of oppression currently employed in repressive countries.
When President Obama spoke about ‘his people’ he was always referring to black-Americans rather than all Americans. Historically however, the President’s ‘people’ were all the citizens of the ‘United’ States of America not some divisive tribe or sub-group.
America will have made progress when Black History Month and the NAACP come to pass.
(Get Lou’s podcast at “No Hostages Radio” and his articles at nohostagesradio.com)
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