On Tue, 19 Jul 1994, Blair Sandler wrote:
> Doug Henwood wrote about today's WSJ article on the Christian
> Coalition.
>
> "They want to become, says organizer Ralph Reed, a true rainbow
> coalition. This means that the easy equivalences of right=racist
> and multiculti=progressive must be rethought...."
>
> But the article also notes that they're not really getting
> anywhere with their outreach to African Americans. Furthermore,
> the right has long included (in uneasy alliance, perhaps),
> especially but not exclusively in Florida, "hispanics," and I
> would argue that it has not diminished the ferocious racism of the
> right.
Of course there's plenty of racism on the right, and for reasons probably
quite essential to some brands of right-wing thought. But not all (e.g.
libertarian - and the Rockford Institute's paleoconservatives are trying
to forge an alliance between the black and white working classes against
immigrants). When the leader of one of the most important right-wing
forces in the country, Ralph Reed of the Xtian Coalition, declares they
want members of all colors, we need to take this seriously and stop
clinging to old models.
Since one of their principal organizing tools is now gay-bashing, they've
had some success, even right here in Sodomy Central, New York City, at
luring "Hispanic" and religious black support.
>
> One more thing: their idea of a "One more thing: their idea of a "true
> rainbow coalition" is
> multiethnic but not multicultural. On the contrary, the goal is
> that everybody should share 1950s middle America nuclear family
> white bread culture. Multicultural is anti-assimiliationist.
>
This only proves that multicultural is a very slippery and fundmentally
empty word. How can you deny an organization with members of many races
and national groupings the term multicultural? If that group fails some
political test then the word itself is misleading.
Doug
Doug Henwood [[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Left Business Observer
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