Multi culturalism and Dominate culture Theory’s

Multi culturalism and Dominant culture Theory’s

By Brian Lynn Bentley

Colorado Technical University

Multi culturalism and Dominate culture Theory’s

"A conventional view of culture holds that it is the social glue that binds people with a common past through its transmission from one generation to the next. Early anthropologists, who studied small-scale, technologically simple societies, portrayed culture as passive, enduring, and inherited. They saw culture as tradition, something unifying individuals to form a whole, politically homogeneous society.”(Kottak & Kozaitis, 2002, p. 45-47).

There are many terms some more correct and accurate to use in this immigration illegal immigration debate. One of the terms we use is assimilation and assimilation can happen either intently or by accident just from proximity. In its most basic definition is adapting to fit in to the main culture. Some time it happens by accident you pick up accents and habits of those people you hang around and sometimes even opinions. then sometimes there are some cultures that refuse or are resistant to assimilate and that is under stable in a conquered country scenario if we got taken over by another country through a war, then of course I would be resistant against the new Dominant culture trying to force me to give up my culture beliefs but that is by coercion. "North Americans construct identities on the basis of culture. That is, people use culture (shared experience, knowledge, and values) to organize society into multiple groups with political, economic, educational, and moral goals.”(Kottak & Kozaitis, 2002, p. 45-47).

The assimilation we are referring too is groups assimilating to an adopted culture. We can be assimilated and not have to give up their culture. Some even turn their culture into tourist’s attractions, Example China town in major cities. Or in Michigan we have the Holland festival which celebrates Dutch immigrants, and further up north in a town called Frankenmuth Michigan celebrates there Bavarian history. 24 hours a day 7 days a week and make money off the culture. America’s foods come from all around then we Americanized them and they also make money. So assimilation is mostly good thing unless it’s down my coercion and intentional blocking of someone history like the Canadians and American governments used to do to the natives Canadians and native Americans right down to banning language("Language | NCAI," n.d.)

However purism by definition is a situation where different social classes, different religious groups, different races and different ethnic groups and nationalities are together and unified and still maintain traditions and interests. It’s also the belief that all these classes can work tougher for a common cause or interest. (WEBSTERS, 2015). And there is even a group that called pluralism project that intends to define and push this definition of cooperation among the classes. Ro example the fourth statement of the pluralism project state that pluralism is based on dialogue being able to listen and not being afraid to contribute, to understand both sides to listen to both sides to work through the issues by not screaming at each other or calling each other names, Which is what we have become lately. ("What is Pluralism," 2015). We see this kind of behavior whenever we discuss immigration or ethnic diversity and it’s a shame that we can’t have honest disagreements with each other without immediately going to sand box tactics of four year olds.

the modern movement or model we seem to be trying to go today with various levels of success is the Multicultural model though maybe currently controversial but the definition and intent is not really controversial at all its making people aware of others peoples diversity and philosophy which is always a great thing and not too far off the other models presented in this report. The definition of multiculturism is to incorporate ideas beliefs of people from many different parts of the world and I think we been doing that more less for years we got all sorts of foods from various nationalities and ethnic groups and Music from African American Jazz rock the blues and types and various forms of dance came from African Americans we have lots of words phrases and so on from every nationality that has been adopted into Americana. I think the controversy comes that I do not know if its intentional or accidental based on the model but we seem to be creating more and more ethno-centric type of behavior. Which I think is affecting the concept of diversity in the first place. Right down to banning certain words as offensive So in my opinion the question is how can you have a dialogue in the first places when you treat all words of a dialogue as a weapon and start banning words or redefining what words mean based on a subjective opinion of some intellectual elites who for the most part never dealt in the world with real people and reality outside their small circle where no one ever disagrees. What a scary world that would be if everyone agreed on everything with no one allowed to think for themselves? Even though the concept and definition of multiculturism is great and its intent is Nobel.

And the current model that even if it’s not in full uses the current theme is we use the multiculturism model. And it’s kind of based on the assumption that certain groups are automatically granted privilege based on certain color race ethnicity or wealth. We all have seen various form of that my favorite form of that is nepotism hiring family over qualified people, Or the fact that the rich can get things the rest of us cant, and to some extent race based privileges which I believe used to happen a lot more in the past then they do now. Not to say they are extinct but there are so many other "Privileges" that have nothing to do with archaic racist beliefs. As I look at this white privilege group it intends to throw all people of a certain color under a bus for example one quote infers that all white people are rich. “I can completely understand why broke white folks get pissed when the word 'privilege' is thrown around...I was constantly discriminated against because of my poverty and those wounds still run very deep...[But] The concept of intersectionality recognizes that people can be privileged in some ways and definitely not in others." ~Gina Crosley-Corcoran. ("White Privilege Conference - What is Privilege?," n.d.)

Because we know all white people are born rich with thousand dollar bills coming out of the womb. I have rich people in my family but I have never been personally rich, I am sure we all have fantasied about it. And I want to be rich I don’t think being rich is a bad thing, but to assume all people of any color have an advantage or disadvantage based over biological pigment seems to be very silly. But I do admit there are reasons for a lot of these ethnic groups and religions not to trust people outside their community but accusing all white people of a crime of existing, is the same as accusing all blacks or all Asians or all Mexicans. How do you apologize for a pigment? ("White Privilege Conference - What is Privilege?," n.d.)

There is no doubt that there is privilege to some groups, I mentioned some of them but to me this just seems like a political correct form of racism blaming a generation of people for the crimes of a bunch of dead people. And I admit this is an opinion based on my personal experiences coming from a very multicultural family and been in many biracial relationships where most of the racism is coming from isn’t the side most would think.

But if we take the color of accusations out of privilege of course there is privilege some unjust some just. If you’re smarter than I am you are going to have the privilege of getting good grades. If you are more athletic than I am, you are going to get the privilege of getting picked for sports first. I think some of the debate comes from that we think all privilege is hostile that derives from our backgrounds. I assume if I experienced any of this magical privilege I wouldn’t be living in a mobile home I wouldn’t be single I wouldn’t be trying to scrimp and save for medicine and bills and I sure wouldn’t need college to improve my lot in life. And then if we throw in self serration which we see in city schools all the time kids tend to self-segregate around people who look and act like them and the next tier down is that kids will also assisted with people who have similar interests such as the jocks of all colors who have athletic privilege.

"So privilege all by itself is not wrong or bad, however can and will be abused by people who have other motives.." Multiculturalism (from here on abbreviated as MC) is a volatile force. Based on the idea of culture as power.

MC has social, ideological, political, and economic dimensions. It pervades the worlds of work, government, public service, and personal relations.(Kottak & Kozaitis, 2002, p. 45-47).

Why is the current model significant in terms of access and privilege? It assumes that the dominate the white European culture is ignorant of their own biases in opportunity and that somehow they have been afforded opportunities that at least even in the recent past that no other group could experience outside that particular group. However the counter argument to that is we been working so hard since the last 40 maybe 50 years to correct these errors. There is still much work to be done and I agree. I just disagree on some of the behavior actions and tactics of some of these ideologies. Even if I agree with the core cause. Though I think there is also a danger in correcting some of the past sins by punishing people who had nothing to do with it. As well as quantity of people over quality of people to address past sins.

so that leaves us with trying to figure out How is it that certain groups in the United States never given the opportunity to “assimilate”? There are a ton of theories and I read through a brief description of all of them. With the examples of the Native Americans they were forced to assimilate by coercion so they did not have the choice of doing it voluntarily. So there was and will always be resistance based on the conquered who in their right minds wants to assimilate to a culture that conquered you though out the years the animosity between the government and tribes has become smaller and smaller, there is still resentment there. The Irish who either came here through indentured servitude or because of the potato famine had different issues with a hostile population even though the Irish did try to assimilate into the dominant culture of the era they were met with big resistance. The No Irish signs and so on throughout history but the dominant culture assimilated a lot of these other cultures in like St Patrick’s Day. And with African Americans at least up to 1865 the vast majority of them did not come here voluntarily, nor wanted to be here, and where forced by the dominate culture at the time into servitudes and terroristic threats. This lasted in some parts of the country into the lasted 1960s and mid-1970s. SO if your forced against your will to give up something you hold dear for a dominate culture you will of course be resistant to assimilating into that culture. And if the dominant culture doesn’t want you to assimilate into it. It will of course even be harder to fit into the dominate culture.

Social science Proponents also theorize that for centuries "western European and other lighter-skinned immigrants have been more successful in assimilating into mainstream American society compared to their darker- skinned counterparts. "("ASSIMILATION (Social Science)," n.d.) That is very true as we can see the original hostility to light skinned immigrants eventually assimilated over time as times and attitudes change.

Some of the resistance to not allowing groups to assimilate is that prejudice against immigrant groups is higher during economic downturns than in times when the economy is prosperous (Becker 1971). And this is because diverse groups are fighting over limited resources such as jobs..("ASSIMILATION (Social Science)," n.d.) And according this article there is data that correlates to this theory.

Mary Waters’ Black Identities (1999) rocked assimilation theorists still using methods derived from Park and Gordon by suggesting that there are some immigrants (e.g., English-speaking Caribbean’s) who are doing better than native-born Americans.("ASSIMILATION (Social Science)," n.d.) This theory correlates that regardless of color some immigrants do better because they have more resources which ties into the privilege theory. That groups that have more money have more access to opportunities those other groups of a similar background would not have which would lock out the poorer groups from assimilating based on a lack of resources. And another reason is ethnocentrisms means the belief in one’s personal ethic group or religious s group as superior to all other groups and refuses to be estimated even in a new county they adopted as a homeland. It’s a supremacy movement based on one’s culture, ethnicity and or religion.(Your Dictionary, Examples of Ethnocentrism 2015)

References

ASSIMILATION (Social Science). (n.d.). Retrieved from http://what-when-how.com/social-sciences/assimilation-social-science/

Kottak, C. P., & Kozaitis, K. A. (2002). Chapter 4:THE MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY. In On being different: Diversity and multiculturalism in the North American mainstream. Princeton, NJ: Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic.

Language | NCAI. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ncai.org/policy-issues/community-and-culture/language

WEBSTERS. (2015). Retrieved from www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pluralism

What is Pluralism? (2015). Retrieved from http://www.pluralism.org/pluralism/what_is_pluralism

What is Pluralism? (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.pluralism.org/pluralism/what_is_pluralism

White Privilege Conference - What is Privilege? (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.whiteprivilegeconference.com/white_privilege.html

Your Dictionay. (2015). Examples of Ethnocentrism. Retrieved from http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-ethnocentrism.html

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