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Diversity Demise
June 9th, 2007“I don’t celebrate diversity,” I said to the San Francisco hyper liberal, who upon hearing this hyperventilated into a state of indignant disgust.
Before she could engage her tongue into a river of rhetorical retaliation, I injected “I celebrate unity.” The diametric concept short circuited her speech center as well as her alleged mind, and I walked away without further confrontation.
Culture is what makes human existence more than that enjoyed by animals. Dictionaries and anal retentive anthropologists agree that commonly held beliefs and customs (often reflected in laws) are what define social interaction. Commonality is the essence of culture.
One can appreciate and understand differing cultures, and a few pundits and social scientists make a handsome living doing so. But enforced celebration and a desire to create many cultures is inherently destructive and insane. Multiculturalism has the perverse effect of reducing focus and celebration of the common cultural traits that unify people and thus make for a functioning society.
One such culture (if I may abuse the word) is the rap and hip-hop scene, where antisocial behaviour is lauded. Throughout most of the world, cultural norms call for (a) not killing and raping people and (b) informing the cops about those who do. These primary cultural attributes — a right to life and cooperative protection thereof — are rubbish in the hip-hop counter insurgency and their drive to eliminate snitching. Gangsterism is promoted and the gangsters now intimidate innocents into silence. The simple message in “snitch and die.”
There are only two ways to cure this particular malignancy, and neither is going to happen any time soon. The first is for government to take inner-city violence and gangs seriously, and have a rather authoritarian crackdown on gangs everywhere. This won’t happen because politicians hate doing real work, much less reducing fear in the populace. Fear is the original motivation, and as long as the people are scared, politicians will have a reason to ask for votes. Politicians like a certain level of mayhem, and as long as it is confined to the poor, they get fear, votes, and money from those not dying in the street.
The other remedy would be for people within the inner-cities to deal with the problem directly. I have a quirky daydream of enraged parents stringing a local thug-and-dope-dealer from a light pole, and for the police to quietly ignore the swinging body for a few days. Direct and publicly visible reprisal has a lot going for it, not the least of which is inducing the uncertainty factor into the criminal mind. Thugs are not afraid of dying, but they aren’t (completely) stupid either.
But the odds of this happening are slim. Government has attempted to disarm peaceable poor residents, and does little-to-nothing to disarm and disband gangs. Thus every father and mother jailed behind iron bars on their living room windows knows that absent mass retaliatory action, their homes could well become a drive-by scene. I don’t normally advocate ob violence, but it may well be the last best hope for some communities.
Thugism is the most obvious and abhorrent instance of multiculturalism, yet it transparently demonstrates why cultures must focus upon and enforce common traits. Among these common traits are peace — which includes not committing crimes again your neighbors — and cooperation — which does include snitching.
Celebrate unity!
