Multiculturalism

“ In this sense, a government that pursues the cultural assimilation of minorities is a “cultural nation”; cultural unity is seen as the foundation for a strong nation-state ( [90] , p. 561) . The differences between the cultural and ethnic nation model is that “cultural nations” encourage assimilation whereas “ethnic nations” do not, because the latter concept demarcates culture by ancestry and “race”, which cannot be gained or learned by human effort. ”

“ We recognize that tolerance of cultural, ethnic, racial and religious diversity is essential for lasting peace, understanding and friendship among peoples, nations, civilizations, cultures and individuals. ”

“ Considering that a pluralist and genuinely democratic society should not only respect the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identity of each person belonging to a national minority, but also create appropriate conditions enabling them to express, preserve and develop this identity ”

“ We believe it the duty of the Americans of Negro descent, as a body, to maintain their race identity until this mission of the Negro people is accomplished, and the ideal of human brotherhood has become a practical possibility.
3. We believe that, unless modern civilization is a failure, it is entirely feasible and practicable for two races in such essential political, economic and religious harmony as the white and colored people of America, to develop side by side in peace and mutual happiness, the peculiar contribution which each has to make to the culture of their common country. ”

“ Our leading anthropologists have shown a tendency to seek the explanation for such identity in independent development rather than in diffusion, or borrowing, presumably because of the predisposition arising from experience with the highly organized military groups of Europe, where political unity is practically synonymous with cultural individuality. We have seen how this correlation also appeared among the more highly organized peoples of the New World, but was not found among the more primitive tribes where culture groups were far more inclusive than the political ones. ”

“ Common descent, common language, common religion, and common culture: these are the four things which make a nation one; and, conversely, the things which, if unconformable, hold nations apart. To this analysis, modern ethnology has little or nothing to add. It might be said, as Professor Flinders Petrie has suggested, [94] that identity of religious beliefs is in the last resort only a peculiarly refined test of conformity of behaviour between man and man; and that community of culture, beyond dumb interchange of artefacts, is inconceivable without community of speech. ”

“ However, some scholars have attacked the narrow logic that ethnic nations are simply “ethnic” in the sense of being emotionally-charged and exclusive entities based only on dominant ethno-cultural groups. ”

“ Backward and forward along peninsular Europe, men communicated to one another their emotional and objective experiences. The result has been a culture amazing only in its diversity,—amazing because, with contact and interchange of racial experiences, the coursing and recoursing of the same blood, stirred and dissolved, it is amazing that such diversity should persist. ”

“ The first great need of the Negro is that the choice youth of the race should assimilate the principles of culture and hand them down to the masses below. This is the only gate-way through which a new people may enter into modern civilization. Herein lies the history of culture. The select minds of the backward race or nation must receive the new cult and adapt it to the peculiar needs of their own people. ”

“ We can point to degenerate individuals and families here and there among all races, but there is not the slightest warrant for assuming that there does not lie among the Chinese and Hindus, the African Bantus and American Indians as lofty possibilities of human culture as any European race has ever exhibited. ”

“ As a nation we do not possess in an abundant degree these qualities; therefore the ethnic problem is one which may yet postpone its solution until that time when indeed there shall be “Peace on Earth and Good Will to Men.”
Thus far I have touched upon two problems presented by the return of the immigrant tide: the economic and the ethnic.
Another problem presented by this influx of aliens is in that rather indefinable realm called culture.
The question is: Will these people be able to appreciate the cultural ideals of America, and make them their own? ”

“ As for the possibility of social intercourse between the different colored races, I have not the slightest objection to it, provided they were equally virtuous, and equally intelligent; but I do not wish to war with the prejudices of others; I am willing that all, who consult their consciences, should keep them as long as ever they can. ”

“ In view of what is said in other parts of this book, it must come that all men will be united as one nation, with one set of rules and laws applicable to all alike and without discrimination against any branch of the human family, and without regard to his color.
There are not so many prejudices against races as was formerly the custom, or rather habit, and the signs of the times are that prejudice and opposition are diminishing every day. ”

“ Every ethnic group has the right to use its own spoken and written language to preserve its own identity and to promote its fine customs, practices, traditions and culture.
4. The State shall implement a policy of comprehensive development and create the conditions for the minority ethnicities to draw upon/further their internal strengths and develop together with the country. ”

“ In the case where societies are formed and maintained by adoption, that is by immigration, the question arises: How far is it [Pg 112] possible for a people of a different race and a different culture to take over the traditions and social inheritance of another and an alien people? What are the conditions which facilitate this transmission and, in general, what happens when people of different races and cultures are brought together in the intimate relations of community life? ”

“ Is it good policy? Have we in America a distinct mission as a race–a distinct sphere of action and an opportunity for race development, or is self- obliteration the highest end to which Negro blood dare aspire?
If we carefully consider what race prejudice really is, we find it, historically, to be nothing but the friction between different groups of people; it is the difference in aim, in feeling, in ideals of two different races ”

“ The White Race and its Three Groups.—The so-called White Race embraces the historic nations. The chief peoples of this division of mankind fall into three groups,—the Hamitic, the Semitic, and the Aryan [3] or Indo-European. The members forming any one of these groups must not be looked upon as kindred in blood; the only certain bond uniting the peoples of each group is the bond of language. ”

“ As you are aware, the world in which we live today is divided into separate race groups and distinct nationalities. Each race and each nationality is endeavoring to work out its own destiny to the exclusion of other races and other nationalities. ”

“ An ethnic nation bases national group membership upon qualities such as ancestry, marriage, and blood. In this sense, an ethnic nation is an exclusive nation because it places emphasis on historical experiences and the resulting phenotypes that outline the boundary of the “natives.” Some contemporary scholars argue that Eastern European and Asian countries are historical examples of ethnic nations while Western European countries and the United States are historical examples of civic nations. ”

“ But behind all the differences lies a common kinship of blood and of tradition, which has operated to produce the unit we call western European culture; and this racial kinship is the principal reason why it is not difficult for one group of western Europeans to adopt without revolutionizing it the culture of another group. ”

“ Linguistic pluralism and diversity are not obstacles to the free circulation of men, ideas, goods and services, as would like to suggest some objective allies, consciously or not, of the dominant language and culture. ”

“ But it is a racial, almost a historical, phenomenon that these same younger sons who go under in the far places colonized by their own countrymen, make often supremely good when circumstance forces them to live and work amongst either inferior peoples, as in Africa, or a people of a different civilization and culture, as in Asia. ”

“ Today, as Americans engage in a serious and profoundly important dialogue on the future of our multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural society, we do well to remember that we are all immeasurably enriched when we choose the path of inclusion and empowerment. ”

“ But who are the agents to bring about this grand change in the Negro race? Remember, just here, that all effectual revolutions in a people must be racial in their characteristics. You can't take the essential qualities of one people and transfuse them into the blood of another people, and make them indigenous to them. The primal qualities of a family, a race, a nation are heritable qualities. They abide in their constitution. They remain, notwithstanding the conditions and the changes of rudeness, slavery, civilizations, and enlightenment. ”

“ They were inspired with the desire to preserve the purity of their superior race and culture on the one hand, and to assimilate in their social system the aboriginal races as well as they could, in order to save them from annihilation. On the other hand, they felt it necessary to safeguard their race by refusing to intermarry with people on a lower scale of civilization. ”

“ There a circumscribed population of negro race has had a political and social and religious organisation and the elements of higher culture impressed upon it by Europeans, in the belief that it would be possible to construct a social environment which would mould the people. ”

“ Assimilation of culture was partly accomplished in slave days, and it will go on. There is no serious conflict between white and colored, when once the question of assimilation is understood. The problem is one of race adjustment. Fifty years have been insufficient to perfect the relations between the two races, but since they must live together, it is desirable that they should come to understand and sympathize with each other, and as far as possible co-operate for mutual advancement. ”

“ At the start, the United States defined for the world the only race-policy that fits the realities—that of the widest fraternal, rather than paternal, tolerance of human diversity—in the belief "that all men are created equal." ”

“ While these ten millions of segregated citizens abide within their racial fence, they see millions arrive from Europe and pass freely through the national and social gateways—which for them are barred. In the course of a generation they see these new arrivals, men, women, and children born and bred within the diverse nationalities of Europe, differing markedly in appearance and speech from the original colonial stock, become slowly stript of their alien outlook and gradually incorporated within a new national mass. ”

“ We cannot wholly isolate the racial factor from others, and we cannot give an ocular demonstration of what the several inferior races, so-called, are capable of achieving under the most favorable conditions. But with great confidence we can say that since the same race at different times or in different subdivisions at the same time represents vastly different cultural stages, there is obviously no direct proportional relation between culture and race. ”

“ Finally, it has been argued that ethnic preferences "compensate" the group by providing examples of success whom other members of the group will emulate, thereby advancing the group's interest and society's interest in encouraging new generations to overcome the barriers and frustrations of the past. ”

“ The shuffle of their feet on the planks and the murmur of their many voices were punctuated by the klop, klop of hoofs and occasional shouts of laughter. All races of the earth seemed to be represented. It was like a Congress of the Nations at some great exposition. French, Germans, Italians, Russians, Dutchmen, British, were to be recognized and to be expected. But also were strange peoples—Turks, Arabs, Negroes, Chinese, Kanakas, East Indians, the gorgeous members of the Spanish races, and nondescript queer people to whom neither Nan nor Keith could assign a native habitat. ”

“ We find our children, as a result of their foreign culture—we do not say in spite of their foreign culture—but as a result of their foreign culture—aimless and purposeless for the race—crammed with European formulas of thought and expression, so as to astonish their bewildered relatives. ”

“ Setting aside the question of whether our cosmopolitan population, with its widely different kinds of racial heritage, is at an advantage or a disadvantage because of its conflicting traditions, we must accept the variety in substance and attempt to find in it a new kind of national unity, hitherto unknown in the history of the world. ”

“ Promoting unity among all ethnic groups and achieving common development and prosperity serves the fundamental interests of the people of all our ethnic groups. We will fully implement the Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy and ensure that the policies and measures of the central government supporting economic and social development of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas are effectively implemented. We will continue to increase support to ethnic groups with small populations. ”

“ Today, as our Nation becomes increasingly multiracial and multiethnic, his compelling vision is more important than ever, and the means for realizing it are now within our reach. This past year, as part of my Initiative on Race, Americans across the country participated in thousands of honest and open conversations about race in a sincere effort to heal our divisions and move toward genuine reconciliation. ”