 |
|
|
 |
|
Objectivism Home >
Essays &
Articles > Diversity and Multiculturalism: The New
Racism
Diversity and Multiculturalism: The New
Racism
By Michael S. Berliner, Ph.D., and
Gary Hull, Ph.D.
Is ethnic diversity an “absolute
essential” of a college education? UCLA’s Chancellor Charles Young
thinks so. Ethnic diversity is clearly the purpose of affirmative
action, which Young is defending against a long-overdue assault. But
far from being essential to a college education, such diversity is a
sure road to its destruction. “Ethnic diversity” is merely racism in
a politically correct
disguise.
Many people have a very
superficial view of racism. They see it as merely the belief that
one race is superior to another. It is much more than that. It is a
fundamental (and fundamentally wrong) view of human nature. Racism
is the notion that one’s race determines one’s identity. It is the
belief that one’s convictions, values and character are determined
not by the judgment of one’s mind but by one’s anatomy or
“blood.”
This view causes people to
be condemned (or praised) based on their racial membership. In turn,
it leads them to condemn or praise others on the same basis. In
fact, one can gain an authentic sense of pride only from one’s own
achievements, not from inherited
characteristics.
The spread of
racism requires the destruction of an individual’s confidence in his
own mind. Such an individual then anxiously seeks a sense of
identity by clinging to some group, abandoning his autonomy and his
rights, allowing his ethnic group to tell him what to believe.
Because he thinks of himself as a racial entity, he feels “himself”
only among others of the same race. He becomes a separatist,
choosing his friends — and enemies — based on ethnicity. This
separatism has resulted in the spectacle of student-segregated
dormitories and segregated
graduations.
The diversity movement
claims that its goal is to extinguish racism and build tolerance of
differences. This is a complete sham. One cannot teach students that
their identity is determined by skin color and expect them to become
colorblind. One cannot espouse multiculturalism and expect students
to see each other as individual human beings. One cannot preach the
need for self-esteem while destroying the faculty which makes it
possible: reason. One cannot teach collective identity and expect
students to have
self-esteem.
Advocates of
“diversity” are true racists in the basic meaning of that term: they
see the world through colored lenses, colored by race and gender. To
the multiculturalist, race is what counts — for values, for
thinking, for human identity in general. No wonder racism is
increasing: colorblindness is now considered evil, if not
impossible. No wonder people don’t treat each other as individuals:
to the multiculturalist, they
aren’t.
Advocates of “diversity”
claim it will teach students to tolerate and celebrate their
differences. But the “differences” they have in mind are racial
differences, which means we’re being urged to glorify race, which
means we’re being asked to institutionalize separatism. “Racial
identity” erects an unbridgeable gulf between people, as though they
were different species, with nothing fundamental in common. If that
were true — if “racial identity” determined one’s values and
thinking methods — there would be no possibility for understanding
or cooperation among people of different
races.
Advocates of “diversity”
claim that because the real world is diverse, the campus should
reflect that fact. But why should a campus population “reflect” the
general population (particularly the ethnic population)? No answer.
In fact, the purpose of a university is to impart knowledge and
develop reasoning, not to be a demographic mirror of
society.
Racism, not any meaningful
sense of diversity, guides today’s intellectuals. The educationally
significant diversity that exists in “the real world” is
intellectual diversity, i.e., the diversity of ideas. But such
diversity — far from being sought after — is virtually forbidden on
campus. The existence of “political correctness” blasts the
academics’ pretense at valuing real diversity. What they want is
abject conformity.
The only way to
eradicate racism on campus is to scrap racist programs and the
philosophic ideas that feed racism. Racism will become an ugly
memory only when universities teach a valid concept of human nature:
one based on the tenets that the individual’s mind is competent,
that the human intellect is efficacious, that we possess free will,
that individuals are to be judged as individuals — and that deriving
one’s identity from one’s race is a corruption — a corruption
appropriate to Nazi Germany, not to a nation based on freedom and
independence. |
|
|
|
