In the current "special"" issue of U.S News and World Report covering the history of American food culture, columnist Michael Barone in a commentary entitled
"Cultures Aren't Equal" outlines his theory on the superiority of white culture:
Anyone who has been keeping up with British opinion since the July 7 bombings will have noticed that "multiculturalism" is under sharp attack.
Multiculturalism preaches that we should allow and encourage immigrants and their children to maintain and celebrate their own culture apart from the national culture. Society should be not a melting pot but, in the phrase of former New York Mayor David Dinkins, "a gorgeous mosaic." That mosaic, of course, looks less gorgeous as people surveyed the work of the British-born-and-raised bombers.
Sounds like a run of the mill attack on "multiculturalism." But wait, it gets better (or maybe worse). On the flip.
From a worn and tired attack on multiculturalism, we get this gem:
Multiculturalism is based on the lie that all cultures are morally equal. In practice, that soon degenerates to: All cultures are morally equal, except ours, which is worse. But all cultures are not equal in respecting representative government, guaranteed liberties and the rule of law. And those things arose not simultaneously and in all cultures, but in certain specific times and places -- mostly in Britain and America, but also in various parts of Europe.
That's right - rule of law, represenatative government, and guaranteed liberties - all the unique product of Britain, American and "parts" of Europe. What do these places have in common - that's right - its where are the white people are from. Of course, in addition to being irredeemably racist, its also, well, factually wrong.
I find it telling that Barone gets the history of this country's democratic traditions so historically incorrect. I don't know what history textbook he is using, but mine says that the British colonists that arrived on the American shores were monarchists. They came here with a firm belief that people are rightfully ruled by hereditary monarchs - the Founding Fathers, before they eventually broke from Britain, aspired to be nothing less than perfect subjects of the Crown - it was due in large part that landed aristocracy back home refused to grant them peerages that the Founders decided to "revolt."
Meanwhile, those funny brown people these colonial Brits called "Indians" were governing themselves in one of the oldest participatory democracies under the Iroquois Confederacy - a confederacy of five (later six)nations of Native Peoples. Regardless of how much influence the Iroquois Confederacy had on the development of the American system of government (and there is legitimate disagreement amongst historians on this count), it is still telling that the Native Peoples governed themselves democractically, while the Europeans did not.
And what are we to make of those silly little Asians? You know - the ones who created one of the earliest comprehensive written legal codes known as the Tang Code in 653 AD? That would be back when Rome was a splintered shell of barbarism and violence. Of course, a Chinese person living back then might scoff at us for holding up "rule of law" as a sign of cultural advancement. Under their Confucian system, the law was for primitives and barbarians who could not control their own actions and passions and thus needed externalized controls - a truly civilized person would engage in voluntary self-control by observing various social rites. But that is, as they say, just history.
And finally, what is so wrong about immigrants celebrating and observing their ethnic heritage alongside the national civic culture. Multiculturalism is NOT about celebrating it APART, but alongside. Or maybe Mr. Barone has a problem with St. Patrick's Day? Or Columbus Day? Or Bastille Day? I'd really like to know. Because if it wasn't for Italian-Americans fierce pride in their own Italian heritage, I wouldn't have the pleasure of choosing between three different Italian eateries within a block from my apartment. Or maybe Barone is just pissed that pizza conquered America and salsa displaced ketchup as the number one condiment we buy.
If you would like to know too (or know why U.S. News is publishing such racist tripe), letters to the editor can be sent to: letters@usnews.com