Re: Anticommunism and Cults
tuckerpf@sprynet.com
Wed, 8 May 1996 08:02:40 -0400
On Thu, 2 May 1996, Candida Ellis <cellis@uclink.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>
>When I see the argument that multiculturalism is responsible for the
>failure of the left (as well as for all the racism in the world) and when
>I see the argument that black nationalism turned "nonracists" off to
>antiracist struggles [snip]
>I think the world has perhaps turned on its axis and that is why these
>announcements appear to stand facts on their heads.
>
> I'll never forget the look of horror
>on the face of one young man who was told to join a demonstration group
>heading out to sit-in "so that it would be integrated." Since everyone
>in the group was white, he understood this to mean he was believed to be
>black. He was not black and the only thing he had to hold onto was just
>that. His reaction to the moment inspired some discomfiture among those
>of us who understood the implications and were ourselves white. Among
>our African American fellow demonstrators, it inspired only a moment's
>contempt.
A good story, but one from the sixties, not the multicultural nineties. Critics
of multiculturalism are on target when they point out how far the dialog has
traveled in the intervening years, and in what strange directions. For
instance, a spokesperson for White Women Against Racism, a University of
Pennsylvania student group, recently defended the exclusion of a black student
from a meeting of the organization with the statement "we believe racism is a
white problem." This is I think a curious twist on your story from the sixties.
Jeff Apfel