Two months ago at an Asian American Lawyers convention, I sat on a panel that, among other things, attempted to predict the future of race relations in post-riot Los Angeles. As the panel's only conservative, it was interesting to watch my liberal counterparts perform all manner of mental and rhetorical gymnastics so as to avoid addressing the obvious reality that their self-created multiculturalist world was in shambles.
The L.A. riots exposed the fact that multicultu-ralism is based on a lie. Stripped of its euphemistic cliches, multiculturalism's fundamental characteristic is its hostility to the majority culture of white Americans. The liberal Asian American activists who sat on my panel, like their multiculturalist brethren in other minority communities, still cling to the bizarre belief that this hostility is enough to submerge all differences between the non-white races and unite them all in the liberal crusade.
This viewpoint is flawed for several reasons. First, many minorities, especially Asian Americans, have done extremely well in white capitalist America. As opposed to the liberal civil rights leaders who presume to speak for them, most Asian Americans do not spend their entire waking moments thinking about how oppressed they are. In Asian American communities, people are usually more concerned with making the most of the opportunities offered by the free enterprise system than in complaining about imaginary white bogeymen. Little wonder then that Republican candidates have always done well among Asians.
More fundamentally, the multiculturalists ignore the fact that the cultural gulf between various minority groups is often so large and deep that any minor resentments they may share against whites are overwhelmed by their differences with each other. The starkest example of this comes from Los Angeles where a recent confidential police report states that 'there will be an upcoming race war between blacks and Hispanics.'
The reasons for this probable race war are instructive. On one level, the rising conflict will be caused by black and Hispanic gangs warring over turf and drug-trafficking 'rights.' However, in a front-page article, The Los Angeles Times notes that, 'Although the battle may be over money, authorities concede that race is intimately woven into the struggle. The prison gangs encouraging the fight are steeped in a separatist mentality forged from years of confrontation behind bars.'
Conservatives have warned that the multicultu-ralist prescription of diversity at the expense of common culture would lead to tribalism and eventu-ally to separatism and violence. Sadly, these predictions are now coming true.
Further, it appears that uncontrolled immigration is playing a key role in the building racial conflict. While black gang membership has slowed in recent years, such has not been the case for Hispanic gangs.
'Stripped of its euphemistic cliches,
multiculturalism's fundamental
characteristic is its hostility to
the majority culture of
white Americans.'
According to the Times article, 'Latino gangs have been rejuvenated by a new generation of Mexican and Central American immigrants. On the streets and behind bars, they have come to the realization that - if only through sheer numbers - they have the potential to dominate the underworld.' As one Los Angeles police officer observed, the Hispanic gang members' attitude is, 'Why appease any other group when you can just take things over yourself?'
Uncontrolled immigration must therefore be stopped, not only because of the negative fiscal impact it is having on state and local governments, but also because it is literally tearing apart the social fabric of our society. Indeed, the ultimate effect of uncontrolled immigration has been to turn Califor-nia's urban areas not into the multicultural fantasy land of brown, black and yellow brotherhood, but into our own budding version of Bosnia.
This disastrous situation has been brought to us courtesy of our liberal elites, both white and minority, who have waged war against the common Western culture that has held our nation together for two centuries.
This common culture, made up of Judeo-Christian tradition, democratic capitalism, and the teachings of a whole slew of politically incorrect dead white males, created an environment that allowed ethnic group members to prosper as long as they were willing to assimilate into the mainstream.
Today, though, liberal elites view assimilation as evil. Consequently, we have become a nation of unconnected racial groups characterized not by what we share in common with our fellow countrymen, but by increasingly hostile ethnocentrism. A race war is therefore the natural, if somewhat ironic, outcome of our current multicultural madness.
In this election year, it is time for politicians to stop talking about our diversity, and start talking like William Bennett, about the common American culture that we at one time all shared. ;