Multicultural Racist Ideology

In response to my morning post, "Arguing Freedom of Speech: American Enlightenment in Perspective," my ace commenter Tim took issue with the term "multi-culti" ideology.

I suggested in reply that multiculturalism is actually a separatist ideology, used for bludgeoning by the radical left, and I left some resources from the Ayn Rand Institute. Following the links one finds, "Multiculturalism: The New Racism":

By embracing “diversity,” multiculturalism claims to extinguish racism. Far from being a cure for racism, multiculturalism is racism in a new, self-righteous guise....

Multiculturalism holds that an individual’s identity and personal worth are determined by ethnic/racial membership—not by his own choices and actions. One cannot urge people to believe that their identity is determined by skin color and expect them to become colorblind. Observe, for instance, how college students have become racial separatists, choosing their friends based on ethnicity—and banding together to form self-segregated dormitories.

Or consider how the clamor for “slave reparations” in fact engenders racism. Whites today, who never owned slaves and bear no personal responsibility for slavery, are asked to accept collective responsibility—simply because they belong to the same race as the slave-owners of the Old South. People are seen not as individuals, but as fragments of a tribal collective.

The premise lurking in the shadows of multiculturalism’s ostensible goals is that the individual’s life has no value or importance apart from the tribal group. He is unworthy of living—because, according to multiculturalism, he is incapable: at root multiculturalism is an assault on the human mind.

Multiculturalism's not assimiliation in the American tradition of openness and integration; it's not a celebration of the ideals of liberty and opportunity, e pluribus unum.

I see it as an ideology of death, and I hope the Ayn Rand link will help folks think more clearly about such issues.