[lit-ideas] Peters on Integration
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 3 May 2006 16:01:50 -0700
Pp 20-22 of New Glory:
". . . We figured out, if ploddingly, that we generate more wealth for
ourselves when we do not exclude talent based on race - or gender or creed.
Nothing drives integration more powerfully than low unemployment rates and a
hungry job market.
"Integration took time because the problem was so massive in the United
States. The numbers involved were already in the millions by the time of
our Civil War. Europe long prided itself on a lack of racial prejudice, but
had so few racial minorities that no one felt threatened (on the other hand,
religious minorities have been fair game for persecution for a millennium -
and still are). Pushkin's reputed African ancestor at the court of the czar
or Harlem jazz musicians in 1920s Paris were exotic pets.
"The situation changed profoundly after 1960, with the influx of foreign
blue-collar workers and unemployable immigrants from North Africa and the
Middle East. Today, racial prejudice in France is more pernicious than that
of our bygone South. Germany rid itself of its Jews - the most creative
members of German society - only to find itself host to millions of Turks no
more interested in assimilation than Germans are in assimilating them. The
grand multicultural experiment in the Soviet Union ended in the devastation
of Chechnya, in terrorism and massacre. The casual Russian term for the
people of the Caucasus or Central Asia is chyorno zhopia: 'black asses.'
"There never was an idyllic earlier world in which all races were equal. A
few members of a different race may have been regarded as harmless novelties
in bygone societies, but once a threshold was crossed and the minority
crowded the native population, even at the margins, the hatred latent in the
human soul emerged. Today, Western Europe is the new Deep South, while
Atlanta is a developing model for humankind's future (hopefully with better
managed airports).
"Real everyday, meaningful racial integration has come further in the United
States than in any previous or other contemporary civilization. Even in
Latin America it's a huge event when a politician with native rather than
European blood reaches high office - despite the majority non-European
populations in most Latin American states.
"No American institution reflects the success of a racial integration better
than our military - especially the U.S. Army. The first major American
institution to integrate, it remains an organization in which any man or
woman may rise to the highest positions on merit. When you see news clips
of our soldiers serving abroad, note the human variety of both officers and
enlisted troops. There is no archetypal American soldier in racial or
ethnic or even gender terms. And there is no sharper contrast between the
wretched bigotry of humankind's past and our future possibilities than the
confrontation between the terrorists tormenting Iraq in the name of a
wrathful god and our multihued soldiers struggling to help the innocent
master freedom."
Lawrence
Other related posts:
