Being Kingly
Do you share Dr. King's vision?

By Roger Clegg, NRO Contributing Editor
January 19 - 20, 2002

requently political differences are about means rather than ends. For instance, no one likes war and we all prefer peace, but folks have very different ideas about the best foreign and defense policies to achieve that end. Likewise, no one desires an impoverished nation and everyone wants prosperity, but there is much disagreement about which policies are best for the economy.

But it's not so clear that this is the case with respect to racial and ethnic relations. There may have been a brief moment when there existed something of a national consensus — a shared vision eloquently articulated in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, with deep roots in the American Creed, distilled in our national motto, E pluribus unum. Most Americans still share it, but by no means all.

There is now a lot more disagreement about the kind of society that people envision — a disagreement not just about means, but also about ends.

Left vs. Right vs. Right
It is fair to say that we have a tripolar model with respect to these visions. The hard left sees an American society that is not only multiracial and multiethnic, but multicultural as well. People will speak different languages and have very different traditions, behaviors, and lifestyles. Governments, universities, companies, and other institutions — even statues — must ensure that these different groups are all represented. "Underrepresentation" is unacceptable.

This multicultural vision is rejected by the Right, but in two different ways. The first conservative vision tries to avoid multiculturalism by avoiding multiethnicity. The best way to ensure that Americans continue to share a common culture is by being very careful about admitting very many people from non-Western, non-Anglo countries.

The third vision is also conservative and also rejects multiculturalism, but without rejecting multiethnicity. It envisions an America of many racial and ethnic groups, but with a common language, common values, and a common culture. It favors liberal immigration policies, but insists on the assimilation of immigrants. In this vision, no group is entitled to a particular degree of representation in any institution; the standards are based on merit, and the chips are allowed to fall where they may.

There are some on the left who may insist that they share the third vision ultimately, but that for the time being believe that institutions should relax merit standards in order to achieve broader representation. And there are some on the right who likewise insist that they also share this vision ultimately, but that for the time being believe that immigration must be severely limited because assimilation cannot be achieved very quickly for non-Western, non-Anglo immigrants. Fair enough, although we'll see why I'm dubious about both fence sitters.

But for those willing to admit cheerfully to either the first vision or the second, Martin Luther King Day is not for you. If you really want a balkanized America made up of ethnic enclaves, or if you are comfortable with the notion that race and ethnicity is part of what defines America — well, right or wrong, you'd have to admit that Dr. King's vision is not yours.

Defining “Assimilation”
Unfortunately, the third vision is not — as we lawyers say — self-executing. Those who share it have to grapple with the issue of how to encourage assimilation. If assimilation is unattainable, then the third vision is unrealistic. On the other hand, assimilation is important not only for immigrants, but also for those who have been here for a generation or two — or more — but have never joined America's culture or have more recently rejected it.

The problem with the fence sitters, in my view, is that the process of assimilation requires the rejection of racial and ethnic preferences, as well as the mind-set that sees oneself as a member of a racial or ethnic group first and as an American only second, and thus must reject a policy that uses them, even temporarily. Furthermore, since in my view the process of assimilation has and can take place efficiently, effectively, and rather quickly, relatively high levels of immigration can be tolerated, even of non-Western, non-Anglo groups.

Before defending these propositions, however, we have to define what we mean by assimilation. Americans need not all eat the same food, listen to the same music, dance the same dances, or celebrate all the same holidays. But assimilation does mean that we must all aim to have certain things in common.

Here are, as I've suggested before on NRO, ten basic principles to which all Americans must subscribe. They are not outrageous, but they are irreducible:

Don't disparage anyone else's race or ethnicity;
Respect women;
Learn to speak English;
Be polite;
Don't break the law;
Don't have children out of wedlock;
Don't demand anything because of your race, ethnicity, or sex;
Don't view working and studying hard as "acting white";
Don't hold historical grudges; and
Be proud of being an American.

Think about it: If each ethnic group were to adopt these ten tenets, would high immigration levels be a problem, and would any racial or ethnic group — recently immigrated or not — be shunned?

Achieving Assimilation
If these are the values that ought to be accepted not only by immigrants but by all Americans, then how do we go about inculcating them? The broadest discussion of how to improve the assimilation process is John J. Miller's excellent 1998 book, The Unmaking of Americans: How Multiculturalism Has Undermined America's Assimilation Ethic. Linda Chavez addressed the issue for Latinos in particular in an earlier book, her 1991 Out of the Barrio: Toward a New Politics of Hispanic Assimilation. More recently, Michael Barone's 2001 The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again drew from Miller's work (as Miller drew from Chavez), and the discussion that follows borrows from all three.

For immigrants, naturalization should focus on assimilation or — as Miller puts it and as many others used to put it — Americanization. In its proposed reorganization of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Justice Department would create a new "Bureau of Immigration Services" that it says would be aimed at improved "service" to its "customers" — i.e., immigrants. But as John Fonte of the Hudson Institute and Miller have pointed out, this is the wrong approach. It should be a "Bureau of Americanization," and it should be focused on creating citizens, not serving customers. For the same reason, we should also make the naturalization process more rigorous. The standards now are dumbed down and nonuniformly applied from region to region.

There is a step even prior to that, however. We should encourage those who plan to make America their home to become full-fledged citizens in the first place. For instance, it is ridiculous that citizens and noncitizens — even illegal aliens — receive equal weight in congressional reapportionment schemes.

Perhaps the most crucial part of the assimilation process — in naturalization, but also before and after, and even for some people whose families have been here for some time — is learning English. We simply have to be able to communicate with one another, and that means a common language, and that means English. So-called bilingual education — that is, teaching English to non-English speakers only slowly, in segregated classrooms, for only an hour or two a day — has proved to be nonlingual: Students never learn English, and their Spanish isn't so hot either.

That's why California and Arizona were so right to ban such programs in favor of English immersion. The importance of English fluency as a common civic bond also makes it outrageous that the federal government requires ballots to be presented in languages other than English in many neighborhoods. It is also to be hoped that the Bush administration appointees will end the Education Department's coercion of school districts into adopting bilingual education, as well as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's war on companies that, for perfectly legitimate reasons, want employees to speak English when they're on the job.

Bad Government, Timid Politicians, Poisonous Elites
It should be now be apparent to the careful reader that, when it comes to assimilation, the federal government is not just failing to help matters, it is frequently making them worse. Those of us who oppose one liberal program or another are often cautioned by political experts that it is not enough to be against something — one must also be in favor of something. I always hate that, especially when government programs are the issue. As Ward Connerly used to say, when a doctor says he wants to remove your cancer, do you demand to know what he's going to replace it with?

Thus, much of the conservative agenda in this area, at least in terms of government programs, is negative. That is, we would be satisfied in large part if the government stopped doing things to hinder assimilation, because it would take place naturally if the government played no worse than a neutral role.

We cannot pass a law that bans people from having children out of wedlock. But we were right to begin removing some of the incentives for doing so that existed pre-welfare reform. It also makes sense to remove other incentives for not working, and to keep in place disincentives for not working, whether it's in the workplace or the schoolroom. John McWhorter has argued persuasively that the progress of African Americans is retarded by affirmative action — "There is no such thing as a human being doing their very best when they are told they only have to do pretty darn well" — as well as by the mind-set that sees studying hard as "acting white."

We have plenty of laws on the books that prohibit racial and ethnic discrimination and harassment; unfortunately, we also have plenty of government actors that (unconstitutionally) award preferences — in employment, college admissions, and government contracting — on the basis of race and ethnicity. In doing so, they send and reinforce the message that people ought to think of themselves in racial and ethnic terms, rather than simply as Americans. And they create a resentment that further divides us from one another.

Assimilation is accomplished not just through the law, of course. It is also a product of social pressures and, in particular, the attitudes of elites. And herein, of course, lies much of the rub in 2002. Once upon a time, the politicians and intellectuals believed in America enough to believe in assimilation; now they don't.

Linda Chavez wrote a decade ago in Out of the Barrio, "Assimilation has become a dirty word in American politics," and Michael Barone concluded in The New Americans last year, "The greatest obstacle to the interweaving of blacks, Latinos, and Asians into the fabric of American life is not so much the immigrants themselves or the great masses of the American people; it is the American elite." Neither major party is willing to talk about assimilation, for fear of being thought anti-immigrant or racist. And the academy seems to think multiculturalism is just a fine idea.

Recently a number of studies have been published showing that some minority groups — especially blacks and, to a lesser extent, Hispanics — make up a disproportionate number of prison inmates. The instinct of the grievance elite has been to attack the police and laws as therefore biased. But this instinct is not only misguided; it reflects and encourages a rejection of civic solidarity between minorities and nonminorities.

Incidentally, there is some controversy these days about the extent to which more integration is necessary for improved race relations. Certainly integration was a big part of King's vision, and a major point of divergence from the world wanted by both white segregationists and black separatists like Malcolm X. Many liberals still insist that integration is essential for racial understanding and harmony — in other words (though they wouldn't use the word), for the kind of assimilation I'm talking about. But this gets cause and effect backwards. Integration is difficult or impossible if assimilation has not been achieved first. But once there has been assimilation, integration is easy. People want to live next door to people like themselves and will shun those who reject their values, whatever the neighbors' skin color and ancestry.

Proud to Be an American
The last item on my list — pride in being an American — is much more critical now than when I first compiled the list in 2000. In obvious ways, wartime can dim the prospects for assimilation — but it can also strengthen them.

Jonetta Rose Barras wrote an op-ed on October 28 titled, "Many Blacks Have Doubts. Here's Why," arguing — and justifying — that "More blacks than whites question or object to the so-called war on terrorism." That "so-called" says it all. Fortunately, I have seen little evidence that Barras is right. I say fortunately because, if any group wants to accelerate its acceptance as Americans, then it should pledge solidarity with the country in its time of need. And if any group wants to guarantee that other Americans will treat them as second-class citizens, then they should act like second-class patriots.

Dr. King's book Why We Can't Wait was filled with patriotism, and it justified the ideals of the civil-rights movement as much by the desirability of freedom as by a cry for equality. King quoted Lincoln and Jefferson, refers to the "founding fathers," and concludes his famous letter from Birmingham jail with a reference to "our great nation." King even referred to "our beloved Southland."

Patriotism is essential to bringing Americans of different races and ethnicities together. It is a neglected ingredient — even a secret weapon — in the continuing improvement of race relations in this country. Patriotism is important both for what it says to whites and nonimmigrants and for what it says to minorities and immigrants.

As to the former, patriotism requires adherence to the American creed, and an essential part of that is embracing one's fellow Americans, whatever their skin color or ancestry. Bigotry is un-American.

According to Gene Autry's ten-point "Cowboy Code," written in 1939, not only must "The Cowboy never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage" (requirement #1), he "He must not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas" (requirement #5). Requirement #10, by the way, is "The Cowboy is a patriot."

Recall the old war movies with a multiethnic roll call: Adams, Berkowitz, Callahan, Dubinski …. The point was, is, that we were, are, all on the same team. In An American Dilemma, Gunnar Myrdal concluded that, in the long run, America's founding ideals and the angels of our nature would spell the doom of Jim Crow, and he was right.

We really are a nation of immigrants, and if someone comes here and learns our rules and plays by them, the bargain is that those already here must accept him as a brother, whatever his color, creed, or ancestry.

But patriotism also requires everyone to embrace America — its ideals, history, and culture. That is the other side of the bargain. To be accepted, one must assimilate.

Assimilation doesn't mean you must forget your ancestors and your roots, eat nothing but hamburgers, listen only to country music, and give up polkas or tangos for square dancing. But English must become your and, especially, your children's primary language, the Fourth of July must be celebrated more loudly than Bastille Day or Cinco de Mayo, and you must bury your historical grudges against the foreign or domestic ancestors of your fellow Americans. You must work hard, follow the law, and join the bourgeoise. All this, again, applies to native-born Americans as much as immigrants.

Consider this analogy: You find yourself living in an apartment building with many other tenants, some of whom are proud, long-time residents and some of whom are newly arrived like you. What is the likely reaction of the long-time residents if you never miss an opportunity to tell them what a lousy apartment building they have and what a lousy job they have done over the years in maintaining it? Remember: It's your home now, too. It's all right to make suggestions for how to better fix up the place now, but the present should be the focus rather than criticisms of the past.

Yet patriotism and assimilation are maligned today by the intelligentsia and, especially, the self-appointed spokesmen for racial and ethnic minorities in the grievance elite. By denigrating America, laughing at patriotism, and encouraging identity politics, these elites are ensuring balkanization and mistrust. America is multiracial and multiethnic, it is pluralistic, but it is not multicultural. E pluribus unum: Out of many, one.

Patriotism and assimilation ought not to be dirty words, least of all for racial and ethnic minorities. To the contrary: Pride in being an American, and love for America and among Americans, is the best civil rights policy we could have.