Ethnic Pluralism and Civic Responsibility in Post-Cold War America

Abstract

Although Americans enjoy viewing themselves as a tolerant people, the empirical history of the colonial origins and evolution of the American nation-state reveals a more sobering reality. When it comes to social and cultural diversity issues, Americans have displayed an historically persistent tendency to be socialized into intolerant traditions. The chapters of American history are replete with instances of persecutions of those who dared to be different or who could not help being different due to religious affiliation, ethnic identity, impoverished socioeconomic status, political orientation, gender, sexual orientation, age, or socially defined race (Higham, 1955; Solomon, 1956). Dialectically, due to declining economic conditions or significant political and economic change experienced by the oppressed, intolerance in America becomes expressed in massive reactionary movements and by public sanctioning of discriminatory policies and social practices. This is certainly an explanation for the passing of the Sedition Acts in the late 18th century, the rise of the Klu Klux Klan and the American Protection Association in the final third of the 19th century, and the increasingly explicit racist tendencies of the political right in the last decades of the 20th century (Higham, 1955; Solomon, 1956; Winant & Omi, 1986). These more-than-obvious peaks in intolerant expressions, along with the Red Scare of the 1920s and the 40-year Cold War, window-dress the streams of intolerance that flow through the subterranean of dominant American culture and society. The normality of Americans' intolerance toward those who look and act differently is perhaps the major reason why the United States is experiencing difficulty coming of age in this post-Cold War era. Contrary to the way in which most Americans are taught to think about themselves and others, the post-Cold War period necessitates global identity. The most effective citizens in this period will be those who can understand and cross cultural boundaries with ease and who are knowledgeable of paradigms that are larger than their own local and national boundaries. However, such an extended worldview may prove difficult for most Americans to grasp because we are generally socialized to view differences through the bifocal lenses of fear and hostility, especially when it