Temat: Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism or cultural pluralism, a term describing the coexistence of many cultures in a locality, without any one culture dominating the region. By making the broadest range of human differences acceptable to the largest number of people, multiculturalism seeks to overcome racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination.

The word appeared in the American press in the early 1970s, and multiculturalism became commonplace by the 1980s. It was a flashpoint for controversy in the late 1980s and early 1990s, especially in relation to educational curricula and government policies, and remained troublesome in 2001. Multiculturalism has been provocative because it represented intensely held, conflicting perceptions of American society, principles, and standards. Many viewed it as the fulfillment of America's quest for equality of racial and ethnic groups and women. Many others have seen it as the subversion of the nation's unifying values.
The movement for multiculturalism was the culmination of a number of defining events. Challenges to inequality following World War II sparked the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, initiating the institutionalization of the principle of equality of all Americans, men and women. The 1968 Bilingual Education Act, the related 1974 Lau v. Nichols decision, and the 1972 Ethnic Heritage Studies Program Act bolstered the multicultural movement, awakening many groups to seek their cultural roots, proclaim the value of their cultures, and call for the inclusion of group histories and cultures in educational programs. The goals have been to overcome historic invisibility and to nurture group pride, and some have believed schools have the obligation to help preserve such cultures.
But as some spokespersons became more strident in their insistence on such curricula reforms, repudiating the long-held American belief in assimilation, their demands generated equally intense opposition among those who already perceived threats to American core culture and values, especially in the emerging affirmative action policies. Multiculturalism became the focal point of the battles over group rights versus individual rights, ethnic cultures versus the common culture, pluralism versus assimilation, and particularly the diversity content in school curricula.

Placing diversity at the center of the American polity and educating all children about the richly varied components of the nation's heritage were viewed by advocates of multiculturalism as the fulfillment of America's promise of respect, opportunity, and equality. Others perceived a lack of a consistent definition of multiculturalism and felt that culture was being made synonymous with race. In addition, they argued, ethnic cultures were fading in the United States. They also maintained that proponents used curriculum changes for separatist political ends, retarding the education of non-English-speaking children and posing a threat to the common center that bound the nation together.
Some people have explored a middle ground. They accepted the multiplicity of heritages and cultures and have seen pluralism as a part of the core culture and values, but they deemphasized contemporary ethnicity and have viewed Americans as possessing flexible and fluid identities because they lived in multiple "worlds." That approach prompted an emphasis on cosmopolitanism and universalism over the particularism of ethnicity. The conflicting visions of the nation's mission ensured that the controversy did not end with the beginning of the twenty-first century.


Political correctness is defined as an avoidance of expressions or actions that can be perceived to exclude or marginalize or insult people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated.

In broader terms, political correctness refers to the implied or perceived expectation that it is improper to offend a minority or special interest group. In effect, political correctness marginalizes certain words, phrases, actions or attitudes through the instrumentation of public disesteem. Hence, it is a mild form of persecution that ultimately creates a tension between sensitivity and censorship.
To understand political correctness, it may be helpful to view the words independently, starting with the word political. The ultimate explanation of every political controversy is the disposition of power. In a political context, power refers to the dominion of some men over others, or the human control of human life. Ultimately, it means force or compulsion. Correctness in this context is subjective, and corresponds to the sponsored view of the government, minority, or special interest group. By silencing contradiction, political correctness entrenches the view as orthodox. Eventually, it is accepted as true, as freedom of thought requires the ability to choose between more than one viewpoint.
Political correctness is not unique to any political party, special interest group, or language.

History
The often quoted earliest cited usage of the term comes from the U.S. Supreme Court decision Chisholm v. Georgia (1793), where it clearly means that the statement it refers to is not literally correct, owing to the political status of the United States as it was understood at that time.
The term "political correctness" is said to derive from Marxist-Leninist vocabulary to describe the "party line". By the 1970s this term, re-appropriated as a satirical form of criticism, was being used by some on the Left to dismiss the views of other Leftists whom they deemed too doctrinaire and rigid. It was in this sense that the popular usage of the phrase in English derived.
In the 1990s the term became part of a conservative challenge to curriculum and teaching methods on college campuses in the United States (D'Souza 1991; Berman 1992; Schultz 1993; Messer Davidow 1993, 1994; Scatamburlo 1998). In a commencement address at the University of Michigan in 1991, President George H. W. Bush spoke out against administrators and academics who would "declare certain topics off-limits, certain expressions off-limits, even certain gestures off-limits" (Glassner 1999).
The phrase "politically correct" has become popular in other countries as well, including several Scandinavian countries (politisk korrekt=pk), Spain (políticamente correcto), France (politiquement correct) and The Netherlands (politiek correct).[citation needed]

Political correctness as a linguistic concept
This practice of using "inclusive" or "neutral" language is based on the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, which states that a language's grammatical categories shape its speakers' ideas and actions.The objective is to bring peoples' unconscious biases into awareness, allowing them to make more informed choices about their language and making them aware of things different people might find offensive.
The goal of changing language and terminology consists of several points, including:
Certain people have their rights, opportunities, or freedoms restricted due to their categorization as members of a group with a derogatory stereotype.
This categorization is largely implicit and unconscious, and is facilitated by the easy availability of labeling terminology.
By making the labeling terminology problematic, people are made to think consciously about how they describe someone.
Once labeling is a conscious activity, individual merits of a person, rather than their perceived membership in a group, become more apparent.
In linguistics, the strong form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis holds that a language's grammatical categories control its speakers' possible thoughts. While few support the hypothesis in its strong form, many linguists accept a more moderate version, namely that the ways in which we see the world may be influenced by the kind of language we use. In its strong form, the hypothesis states that, for example, sexist language promotes sexist thought.
The situation is complicated by the fact that members of identity groups sometimes embrace terms that others seek to change. For example, deaf culture has always considered the label "Deaf" as an affirming statement of group membership and not insulting or disparaging in any way. The term now often substituted for the term "deaf", hearing-impaired, was developed to include people with hearing loss due to aging, accidents, and other causes. While more accurate for those uses, the term "hearing-impaired" is considered highly derogatory by many deaf people. The term "Hard of Hearing," however, is considered an acceptable descriptive term for a limited- to non-hearing person.

Critics of political correctness
Critics argue that political correctness necessarily implies censorship and endangers free speech by limiting what is acceptable in the public discourse, especially in universities and political forums. University of Pennsylvania professor Alan Charles Kors and lawyer Harvey A. Silverglate, connect political correctness to the ideas of Marxist Herbert Marcuse, in particular his claim that Liberal ideas of free speech were in fact repressive. They see this "Marcusean logic" as being at the basis of the hundreds of college speech codes formulated on American university campuses. Others contend that politically correct terms are awkward, euphemistic substitutes for the original stark language. They also draw comparisons to George Orwell's invented language Newspeak.
Camille Paglia, a self-described "libertarian Democrat," argues that political correctness gives more power to the Left's enemies and alienates the masses against feminism.
Skepticism about the existence of political correctness
Some commentators, usually on the left, argue that the term "political correctness" was engineered by American conservatives around 1980 as a way to reframe political arguments in the United States. Such commentators say that there never was a "Political Correctness movement" in the United States, and that many who use the term are attempting to distract attention from substantive debates over discrimination and unequal treatment based on race, class, and gender (Messer-Davidow 1993, 1994; Schultz 1993; Lauter 1995; Scatamburlo 1998; Glassner 1999). Similarly, Polly Toynbee has argued that "the phrase is an empty rightwing smear designed only to elevate its user".


Affirmative Action is the network of law and public policy developed in the post–World War II era to allocate resources such as jobs, educational opportunities, procurement and construction contracts, and voting strength to African Americans and, beginning in the late 1960s, to women and other minorities. The purpose of affirmative action, to remedy the under representation of women and minorities in workplaces, business ownership, and educational institutions, has been articulated through a variety of formal and informal approaches, including presidential executive orders, administrative guidelines, judicial decisions, and personnel practices, that apply to the nation's public and private institutions.

Affirmative action had precedents in racial and labor policies that sought to compensate for past injustices, such as the Reconstruction-era plans to redistribute former slaveholders' lands to the freedmen. The National Labor Relations Act (1935) required employers to "take affirmative action" to reinstate employees fired for union activity. In 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, prohibiting racial discrimination in war-related industries. He drew upon the notion of affirmative action by bringing the power of the federal government to bear on war-related industries that had excluded African Americans in the past. President Harry Truman broadened Roosevelt's executive order to require that any company that was a government contractor in peacetime formally agree not to discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, or national origin. While these gestures were not compensatory, their major thrust mandated the equitable treatment of minorities by bringing them into formerly segregated fields of employment.

For the next two decades, civil rights activists and their congressional allies attempted to pass stronger and more comprehensive laws to diminish employment discrimination. Local, state, and federal antidiscrimination statutes enacted during the late 1940s and the 1950s did little to rectify discriminatory employment patterns because they relied upon individual complainants and exhaustive investigations rather than proactive employment policies. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 10925, which reiterated features of earlier executive orders requiring contractors not to discriminate. This order explicitly directed contractors to take "affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed without regard to race." The affirmative action clause provoked scant comment upon its release. While employers expressed certainty about what it meant to discriminate, they were pensive and skeptical about what affirmative action would require. To the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, which enforced the executive order, affirmative action meant that nondiscrimination was not enough to satisfy the contract's obligations. Government contractors now were required to recruit and promote minority employees, although hiring goals for minorities remained vague. Activists from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other civil rights groups believed these statutes were inadequate, and as early as the late 1940s, they pressed for a stronger federal antidiscrimination law.
The passage of the equal employment section (Title VII) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 heralded a new phase in the fight against discrimination by expanding the concept of employment discrimination and its remedy, affirmative action. Title VII deemed it unlawful for an employer to refuse to hire an individual because of his or her race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. No section of the legislation explicitly mentioned affirmative action, but political and judicial actions eventually used this law to rationalize vigorous remedies for discrimination and exclusion, such as preferential treatment and racial proportionalism in hiring, promoting, voting, and admitting to college. Congressional opponents of Title VII were concerned that the legislation would force an employer to hire on the basis of race rather than merit, but they compromised with the inclusion of provisos intended to prevent quotas and racial proportionalism. The act established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to investigate and conciliate complaints of discrimination and to recommend cases for the Justice Department to bring before federal courts. The Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 extended Title VII coverage to state and local government employees and to private workplaces with as few as fifteen employees. In this act Congress also authorized the EEOC to sue in federal district court.

In the 1960s, federal contracting guidelines articulated affirmative action to its fullest in large part because President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 issued Executive Order 11246, which created the Office of Federal Contract Compliance (OFCC). Congressional proscriptions did not bind the OFCC, unlike the EEOC, and as a result, the OFCC could require any variety of methods to increase the representation of minorities in the workplace. The construction industry, which had low rates of nonwhite workers, was one of the first to use the new tools of affirmative action under this executive order. The OFCC concentrated on results by setting goals and timetables to achieve a more equitable racial balance in workplaces.
After 1970, the national discussion of affirmative action turned to the judiciary, and the U.S. Supreme Court attempted to clarify the possibilities and limitations for af-firmative action delineated in the Constitution. In Griggs v. Duke Power Company (1971), the Court examined concepts of merit as well as selection and promotion procedures in light of the results they produced, thereby destroying the employer's defense that discriminatory procedures stemmed from "business necessity." In its decision, the Court ruled that the company's intelligence test had no bearing on workers' performance and adversely affected the promotion possibilities of nonwhites. Griggs is notable because the Court upheld the notion that the underrepresentation of minorities in a given workforce might serve as statistical proof that a company discriminated. In the wake of this decision, the lower courts began to require affirmative action, or preferences for minority employees for promotion and transfer, as necessary to remedy past discrimination and to achieve equity in the workplace.
The Supreme Court's most comprehensive review of affirmative action affected employment, and, as a result, lower courts, government agencies, private businesses, and labor unions turned to voluntary and involuntary race-and gender-conscious remedies to comply with Title VII. These affirmative remedies, which modify hiring qualifications, alter seniority systems, institute programs to train and upgrade minority employees, and set aside percentages of business contracts, came to define "affirmative action." The Court gave qualified support to early affirmative action programs with Fullilove v. Klutznick (1980) and United Steel workers of America v. Weber (1979), in which the Court upheld minority set-asides in contracting and the constitutionality of voluntary affirmative action plans. After the late 1980s, however, the Supreme Court became less approving of racially conscious measures that promoted racial balance or diversity in awarding government contracts or in decisions regarding tenure and layoffs.
Title VII also prohibited discrimination against women, but this provision was not fully articulated until the 1970s, when federal agencies began to include hiring goals for women. In 1973, a landmark consent decree signed by AT&T, the EEOC, and the Departments of Justice and Labor banned discriminatory practices against women and minorities and provided for employee upgrades and millions of dollars in salary increases. In Johnson v. Transportation Agency of Santa Clara County (1987), the Supreme Court made it clear that affirmative action plans for hiring and promoting underrepresented workers should take into account gender as well as race. Female employees subject to intentional discrimination and sexual harassment received some of the largest settlements as a result of the 1991 Civil Rights Act, which allowed plaintiffs who were victims of racial or sexual discrimination to recover compensatory and punitive damages.
The Supreme Court also gave considerable attention to affirmative action in higher education. Bakke v. Regents of the University of California (1978), one of the Court's best-known affirmative action decisions, both limited and preserved the use of racial set-asides in admissions. A judicial majority agreed that racial preferences were constitutionally permissible to promote a diverse student body but that racial classifications should be subjected to greater scrutiny. The Court equivocated on the diversity justification by allowing a lower court's decision to stand in Hopwood v. Texas (1996), in which a federal district court ruled that affirmative action is permissible solely to remedy past discrimination.
The Supreme Court's increasing conservatism regarding affirmative action mirrored a growing popular rejection of race-conscious remedies, such as preferential treatment, set-asides, and quotas. The Court further scrutinized the race-based assumptions of federal contracting programs just as the administration of President Bill Clinton announced its "mend it, don't end it" stance on affirmative action policy. Throughout the 1990s, affirmative action persisted as a controversial flashpoint. Basic definitions of the policy and the necessity for racial classifications remained unresolved, and statewide and municipal referenda tested the popularity of preferential treatment. California voters approved a referendum in November 1996 to end the state's affirmative action programs, and voters in several states of the South and the West organized ballot initiatives. While government programs and educational institutions were most vulnerable to court interpretation and voter referenda, affirmative action was embraced most fully by some private corporations in the wake of discrimination settlements that called for the payment of back wages, punitive damages, and the development of programs to hire and upgrade women and minority employees.