By Major W. Cox
Warning! This article may offend reader's who prefer to use the term 'American' as an adjunct geographic descriptor when self-describing their nationality. Biology, religion, ethnicity, and ancestry are excluding determinants infecting our democracy with ethnocentrism. Many Americans, including THIS AMERICAN, hope that our people will not fall victim to these maladies affecting much of the world.
Biology in Africa fuels a struggle between people with black skin attempting to free themselves from domination by people with white skin. Religion in The Middle East is the source of years of conflict between Jews and Arabs. Ethnicity creates a white fortress mentality in Europe and stalls European unity. Ancestry in Canada divides that nation between those Canadians who speak French and those who speak English. If Canada, one of the top five richest nations can't keep from tearing apart, how has the United States kept from tearing apart? Unlike other countries, the population of the United States is comprised of people of many different ethnic groups. The viability of our nationhood provides an ethnically diverse people compelling reasons to see themselves as part of the same nation.
George Washington's vision of a nation of 'one people' guided and sustained the United States of America as we became the greatest nation ever. Today as we do those things that must be done as a nation, we do them under the protective canopy of this achieved greatness. Yet, some fear that we maybe straying from the path of unity onto one of disunity. Today, as the United States becomes more democratic, the biological, religious, ethnic and ancestral differences that have always existed among people, combine with political power to infect our society with ethnocentrism.
Ethnocentrism will destroy the nation. I believe the new eagerness some Americans display in claiming their ancestral heritage is misguided and should not be encouraged. There was a time when most Americans did not openly identify with an ancestral home. We worked toward achieving a common American identity. Many immigrants changed their "old country" name to one that sounded more American. Today, the inverse is true, a roll call of any group of young Americans will read like a roster prepared at the United Nations.
Why have we taken our eyes from the path of unity? Why is it so important at this time in our history for so many Americans to self-identify as someone other than an American first? Why do many of us claim our American part last ...African American, Asian American, Jewish American, Hispanic American of non-African origins, Arab American, white American, black American? As I ponder the seductive affects of ethnocentrism upon individual Americans, my concern for our national vitality grows. Both our foreign policy and domestic politics seem at times to be at variance with the path that our nation traveled to reach it's greatness. Domestically, we encourage ethnic division by creating political boundaries that isolate one ethnic group from another. This is an aspect of our foreign policy as well.
The recent treaty that divides Arabs from Jews in Israel is an example. With this treaty, the PLO gets an ancestral home-land in a location that the Jews claim as theirs. This does not solve the problem. This is the type of ethnic and racial separation that our nation imposed upon the American Indians in the last century. There must be a better way to achieve peace. Why not use our country's powerful influence to require Israel to adopt a more democratic and inclusive form of government. Under a true American-style democracy, Arabs living in Israel would be free to work, travel, attend school, vote and enjoy all the privileges Jews enjoy in that country. We must let all nations seeking American tax-dollars know that our democracy goes with our money.
We must beware and not allow biological attributes, religious preferences, ethnic groupings, or ancestral traditions blind us to the path of America's greatness. We best heed a warning from Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. In his book, The Disuniting of America, Dr. Schlesinger warned that a growing "cult of ethnicity" threatens the central idea "that thus far managed to keep American society whole." This idea is simply that: Americans are one people, indivisible.
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Originally Published: October 1993
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