draining's Diaryland
Diary
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Postethnic America, 2006
POSTETHNIC AMERICA
In Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalsim, David Hollinger looks at postethnicity as �more respectful of ethnicity� as far as the identities and affiliations people have. Postethnicity looks beyond belonging to �American culture� in a great melting pot. But some postethnic red flags appear when Hollinger talks about neo-conservatives as �made up of a great variety of Middle Americans, evangelical Christians, advocates of family values��
Conservatives have managed to adapt family values to their causes and give it a political identity. This becomes a neat way of negating a variety of social justice and multicultural concerns. I am offended by what has become the cultural use of the term �family values� to mean right-wing Christian Americans. South Asians, for example, are more unified as families that include grandparents, parents, and children all living together. And in Haiti, people are not only connected more to their living relatives than we are, they are connected to the spirits of their dead ancestors as well.
�Family values� in the conservative political sense are not really family values. It is a term, used in America, to connote � without having to say it -homophobia, misogyny, gun enthusiasm, and not protecting children AFTER they are born. It also suggests abstinence before marriage instead of teaching young people much needed information about contraceptives, especially AIDS preventing condoms. If people have no knowledge of contraception when they have sex, no wonder there are so many abortions!
I think Americans could learn a lot about spiritual fulfillment from the Haitians, Muslims, and Hindus. They could at least learn about the other meanings of what it means to value the family. Postethnic in the political sense has divisions written all over it that diminish respect for other people and diminish what�s accepted as art. Dawoud Bey writes about black artists in his essay on The Ironies of Diversity and �how those who helped pull the sheets off the institutional racism� of the arts in the 1970s and 1980s are ignored in some recent looks at the past era.
From the liberal standpoint, postethnic still involves the same white guilt. White guilt is useless. It is patronizing to my friends and lovers of color. If you�re white and you feel bad about racism, you should DO something about it. Now, I have to admit, the only connection I have to the cultures of color are having friends and lovers of color, listening to rap, going to exhibits, reading books by bell hooks, and studying Vodou and Santeria.
That�s not enough. But people tend to support the causes that directly affect them. I�ve been a member of the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network; I listen to Diamanda Galas, who is greatly concerned with the AIDS crisis. I also study extensively mental illness, since I live and breathe it and am bipolar.
I think white American people live in a universe where they think theirs is the ONLY universe. They�re still believers in total �American culture,� whereas people of color know there are many worlds. I�m not talking metaphysics here; Many worlds seems to be the point of postethnic culture. But if you look at Cosmopolitan Magazine, for example, most of the women depicted are skinny white yuppies and the black and white ads are meant to try and equate ads and art. People always wonder why artists like rapper Dr. Dre sound hostile. Well, DUH. Wouldn�t you be a bit hostile if you were treated as though the art and beauty of your culture is invisible?
10:50 p.m. - 2006-01-31
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