A Challenge Remains Unfulfilled

Not a day passes in Southern California without us being mindful of the fact that we are a multiethnic community struggling to be born. Proposition 187, the O.J. Simpson case with its multiethnic cast of characters, the rising opposition to affirmative action, the increasing immigrant bashing and persistent reminders of April 29-May 1, 1992.

One of the unintended consequences of the global economy has been to bring different ethnic groups together in a common economic, political and cultural space and compel them to find ways of living together with and despite their differences. The old approach has been to melt cultural differences into a uniformity imposed by the dominant group. This solution has been found to be imperialist and oppressive.

The recent pluralist approach is simply to leave one another alone in our differences without togetherness. This solution is not workable either. It is simply not possible to live in a common social space without interacting. Despite all their differences, ethnic groups have to agree on basic social institutions, structures, laws and means of communication and eventually produce a common culture. The very principle of pluralism--respect for diversity--is feasible only when protected by laws embodying a minimum of justice and nourished by a common culture and sensibility.

Given our natural preference for those who are like us, who belong to our own tribe, the challenge of a multiethnic society is perhaps the toughest of all. The challenge is not to create a uniformity that represses all differences or a sheer plurality in which difference as such is king; it is to create a “solidarity” of “others” across tribal boundaries that nourishes authentic, liberating diversity while firmly opposing self-absolutizing, oppressive diversity.

In this regard, all ethnic groups in Southern California--blacks, Latinos, whites, American Indians, Asians and others--have something to sacrifice for the sake of a new social experiment. They must forgo habits, practices and traditions, however hallowed, that promote clannishness, tribalism and callous injustice against the other to the utter disregard of the common good of a diversely constituted public. Each must develop a new tradition that appreciates ethnic differences and a new consciousness of genuine citizenship that integrates such differences into a wider political solidarity.

The role of religion is crucial. Most of the ethnic groups have been decisively shaped by one religion or another, mostly Christian denominations. Religion provided them with hope, shelter and community as they found themselves in an alien, hostile and often systemically oppressive world. Are these religions also capable of providing the inspiration and energy to transcend one’s ethnic identity to acquire a sense of solidarity with others and a civic sense of common responsibility? Or are they going to exacerbate the situation by promoting apolitical individualism, tribalism and destructive ethnocentrism?

To their credit, mainline church leaders did take some initiative in this regard, preaching, for example, against Proposition 187. But they were defeated at the polls by many of those who had listened to them the previous Sunday. It is not enough to preach solidarity only during a crisis. It is urgent to do so every Sunday and in every house of worship. What counts is the formation of a new habit, a new sensibility, the virtue of solidarity in difference.

One absolute condition of this solidarity should be the elimination of a crucial but perverse form of diversity: gross economic inequality that necessarily pits the dominant group against the dominated, creates political oppression and cultural deprivation, and destroys the basis of solidarity. As long as such in-equality endures, interethnic solidarity will be a struggle for dignity and justice. The liberation of one group from injustice is not possible by its singular unaided effort; it requires solidarity with others.

Four years after Los Angeles’ darkest hour, it is imperative to recall that interethnic solidarity remains one of its unredeemed challenges.