US Multiculturalism

By Maleliberation (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Multiculturalism has been a fundamental aspect of American society nearly since inception, when the colonists first encountered Native American tribes. From this, the United States as an entity has needed to address issues related to a citizenry of widely diverse backgrounds, which stretches all the way from historic times to today, and will continue to be an issue into the future. Two fundamental relationships are key in addressing the debates of modern multiculturalism in America. These relationships are religion and its relationship to the state and population and affirmative action and the government in race relations.

Firstly, one of the biggest issues at the forefront of a multicultural America is the apparent conflict between the “West” with the fundamentalist Muslims, a decidedly “Other” entity, to borrow Edward Said's terminology. With the significant rise of violence attributed to Muslims, people who are Muslim, associated with Muslims, or look like what Muslims are thought to look like are targeted as inherently against America. A style of “guilty until proven innocent.” The fundamental issue here is the reconciliation between national security, a product of US Cold War policy, and preservation of the rights of American citizens as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and the Constitution this country was founded on. Examples abound of Muslim citizens being targeted for illegal wiretapping, government supervision, and general public mistrust by the fact that they follow a specific religion. Further examples speak of the detainment of citizens without proper charges or due process of law. Though the state has a mandate to protect the integrity of US borders and security, no mandate exists for the State to do so at the cost and erosion of citizens’ rights. A product of this move towards a national security state is also the lack of understanding among the general population, specifically in relation to people who “look Muslim,” but have little to do with the faith, or outwardly oppose the fundamentals of the faith.

An example of this is the news stories of vigilante militants attacking and harassing people of the Sikh religion. They do so because, through ignorance, they see the beard and turban and assume they are fundamentalist Muslims when, in fact, Sikhs particularly practice a faith where some tenets are opposed directly to some tenets of Islam, reflecting a long-standing cultural conflict between the two faiths. Moving forward, then, requires the greatest care to ensure that the state protects certain fundamental rights of the citizenry without taking away the rights afforded by the core principles of the country and that the people work to keep culturally aware and avoid simple “black and white” thinking.

Secondly, we must address the issue of Affirmative Action and related policies in relation to the selection and acceptance of students into university. According to the most modern Executive Order 11246, signed by President Lyndon Johnson, the movement of affirmative action

“prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do over $10,000 in Government business in one year from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” It also requires contractors to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, color, religion, sex or national origin."

This has been further required that contractors document their policies for enforcing equal opportunity for review by the Federal government, outlined here:

“..required contractors with 51 or more employees and contracts of $50,000 or more to implement affirmative action plans to increase the participation of minorities and women in the workplace if a workforce analysis demonstrates their under-representation, meaning that there are fewer minorities and women than would be expected given the numbers of minorities and women qualified to hold the positions available. Federal regulations require affirmative action plans to include an equal opportunity policy statement, an analysis of the current work force, identification of under-represented areas, the establishment of reasonable, flexible goals and timetables for increasing employment opportunities, specific action-oriented programs to address problem areas, support for community action programs, and the establishment of an internal audit and reporting system.”

An interesting byproduct of such orders show that businesses and universities have developed, either implicitly or explicitly, policies which favor, or give certain preferential treatment to, underrepresented minorities in relation to acceptance into university. Several states have moved to take this to the ballot, with several also establishing that so called “points systems” favoring certain races over others is unconstitutional. California’s Prop 209 from 1996 describes this response:

“..upon approval in November 1996, [Proposition 209] amended the state constitution to prohibit state government institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity, specifically in the areas of public employment, public contracting or public education.”

In a circumstances surrounding the greater Civil Rights Movement, certain institutions exceeded what many felt was the original “flavor” of the order not by eliminating unequal opportunities among various ethnic groups, but giving preferential treatment and establishing unclear “quotas” for students of certain ethnic backgrounds. No longer based strictly on the merits of the applicant, some institutions swung towards selection based on the color of the applicant’s skin.

Few people still maintain the belief that races hold any true biological significance in relation to the greater human race. Few would openly wish to maintain the unequal institutions common before the Civil Rights Movement helped abolish segregation and certain “separate but equal” policies. The end goal, then, must be a level playing field based not on color of the skin, which is in and of itself a form of discrimination against merit-based selection, but one based solely on the abilities and talents of the applicant being reviewed. This balance, however, continues to be an issue as the US continues to become a more diverse landscape of backgrounds.

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