Reaction to a S-1998 Mpls. Conference on Multiculturalism (eighttapes)

Multiculturalism is not asking you to celebrate cultures or learn about cultures, but for me to celebrate no cultural restrictions, to celebrate myself, and for you to be required to celebrate me, and along the way, to support my demands for respect, more pride of place, more jobs, more foundation support, more money, more programs, and more people like me in high places for a higher degree of attention, resulting in the distruction of the heritage you value.

The 1960's were the rebellious years that brought a new consciousness involving irreverence for standards and beliefs. It was preceived that our traditions were servants of the holders of power; then was born a new belief that any deep attachment to a culture, or a belief system, prevents peoples from understanding one another. This wishing for betterment grew into what is now become a new kind of bureaucracy, fighting against what people think and feel about indisputable truths. Any culture rooted in ancient traditions, is anathema to the actual goals and ideology of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is the religion of difference, splintering our culture and intensifying conflicts, to the point where we can no longer talk openly and honestly, except through intimidation, about such matters as crime, race, poverty, AIDS, the failure of the schools, single-parenthood, affirmative action, racial preferences, welfare, college admissions, merit, the breakup of the family, and the disintegration of urban life.

Multiculturalism is a code word for an expanded concept of moral and cultural relativism, making all of us intolerant, if we should hold up any aspect of the Western way of doing things as better than other ways. Justice has been replaced by tolerance, because justice inplies a moral standard, based on a culture. Therefore history books had to be rewritten to restrain the white biasness. This anti-cultural movement removed more and more unaccepted behavior from our culture which was labled delinquent. Teenage pregnancy has been transformed from taboo to one of many "diverse" forms of family. Dangerous behaviors in school are not an offense but the teachers ignorance of the "cultures" of a diverse student population. Their students fail to learn, not because they do not study, but they did not see themselves in the curricullum, or because they have different ways of knowing. Anti-male, anti-white, and anti-family bigotry is permitted in the belief it is the natural expression of rage of the culturally dispossessed.

logic tells us the founding fathers of these United States were not bigots, for they wrote freedom of belief into our constitution, that even permits an anti-cultural movement to express itself. Our citizens must be aware that this relativistic illusion of the truth was not what gave us success in being the greatest country on earth. History is littered with nations that have stressed differences rather than commonalities. Like it or not, there is a standard. To teach the disadvantaged members of our country to ignore that standard and all the modes of correct behavior is more than a mistake. It is a lie!

-- Anonymous, February 03, 1999