The Bills of Multiculturalism Are Coming Due

So, the campaign for multiculturalism has reached its final victory:  the internecine conflicts of the world’s most violent, war-ridden armpit now embroil the Golden State. The Intifada has gone California.

Of course, ethnic strife isn’t how multiculturalism was supposed to work out.  We were told that multiculturalism, fed by the unrestrained flow of new immigrants from parts of the world that had not traditionally sent them to America, would take the best part of every culture and reorganize them into a new New Jerusalem.  Isn’t that what America’s about, after all?!  The result would be an explosion of tolerance and an enriching of the human experience.

Well, it hasn’t exactly worked out that way, but America has become a lot more like modern Jerusalem—a place of tension and division—than the Shining City on the Hill hoped for by the Puritans.

For most of the 20^th Century, particularly after WWII, it was common for people to think of being an American as something that transcended race, ethnicity, or national origin.

My grandfather, an Italian immigrant, would never have thought of calling himself an Italian-American.  In fact, he (and my Irish and Slavic grandparents) strove to be seen simply as Americans.  

Now, the ideal of an American identity that was accessible to everyone—whether you came over on the Mayflower or a slave ship or steerage in a steamship 300 years later, wasn’t always adopted in practice. For too long, African-Americans were excluded from the conception of what it meant to be an “American.”  In truth, the Irish, Italians, and Catholics generally, were also suspect.

But an open and inviting American identity was—for a brief shining moment in the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s—a cherished and accepted ideal.

Moreover, America (and California in particular) used to be seen as a place to start over—to leave the past behind.  However, we have seen in the past several weeks, that it has instead become a place to keep the past—with all its hatreds, grievance, and violence–alive.

And violence and hatred are exactly what we have seen at campuses across the State, and the country.  At UCLA in particular, the reaction took the form of Old Testament retribution as pro-Israel counter protestors attacked a “Palestinian Solidarity Encampment.”

Don’t get me wrong, I am repulsed by the Jew-hatred (there’s no other word for it) that has been exhibited on college campuses in California and across the country, and I firmly support Israel’s effort to eliminate Hamas, a terrorist organization that has no regard for human life—Israeli or Palestinian.  

I also believe that the Free Palestine movement has a more sinister origin than the mere humanitarianism that many of its followers imagine (or maybe they are happy to be the tools of the West’s enemies).

It’s just that I thought that the whole point of America was to leave the old, ethnic enmities behind. And whether it’s Jew vs. Arab, or Armenian vs. Turk, or Irish vs. British, I have one plea:  LET IT GO!

Now, if multiculturalism is your goal, ethnic slurs, recriminations, and tribal violence are just the price that must be paid. 

But if your aim is unity and comity, the only option is to once again embrace the ideal of an American identity, separate from the hatreds and stupidities of the Old (even the ancient) World.

Somehow, we have managed to do the unthinkable: import the hatreds of the Middle East to Westwood. My grandfather would be appalled.