That was the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr., who emphasized content of character over color of skin.īarack Obamas presidency, however, resurrected tribal identity politics. We were moving away from the racial collective of our past to the individual. Until about 2008, it was generally believed America had made great strides in rendering race incidental rather than essential to our characters. Can its various tribes, and races unite around the Constitution? Or will they inevitably revert to form and give their first loyalties to those of shared superficial racial or ethnic affinities? Regressing to the Color of Our Skin So present-day multiracial America is a great experiment in the unknown. But neither, so far, has guaranteed their citizens either prosperity or security. Today, India and Brazil are large multicultural and multiethnic democracies. Instead, they required a degree of force to ensure calm among rival tribes and warring peoplesviolence that we would find incompatible with our notions of modern democracy. The Roman, Ottoman, and Soviet empires were multiracial. Multiethnic, multiracial consensual governments have been even more brittle and sporadic in history. Nation after nation seems to be devolving into autocracy. Constitutional systems were fragile at birth. They did not appear until over four millennia after civilization first emerged in the Near East. Single Issues of The Independent ReviewĮlected governments were rare in the past.International Economics and Development.
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