An American Fusion

Georg Simmel and the Strength to Contemplate "Racial" Chaos

ronald fernandez — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:03:12 GMT

Georg Simmel and the Strength to Contemplate “Racial” Chaos

One theme of this blog is that the great sociologists still offer provocative and important insights about everyday life. In this case, one of Simmel’s most brilliant essays –How Is Society Possible? – inadvertently tells us how to achieve revolutionary social change.

Let’s start with the word possible. Simmel never discussed justice, equity or the utopias forecast by a Comte or a Marx. Simmel wanted to know what make life predictable. How did a person from New York successfully navigate a variety of encounters with a person from Kansas? In addition, Simmel focused on social glue like age norms. You married at one age and retired at another. Age norms helped make society possible because they offered shared recipes for living that extended from birth to death.

To achieve this level of social order Simmel stressed “generalizations”. A contemporary synonym is social identities or labels but, whatever word you choose, Simmel argued that society was absolutely impossible without the generalizations that, “like a veil, hid my uniqueness as it simultaneously gave it a new form.” In a sort of sociological challenge, Simmel said to try and talk about anyone without, almost immediately adding a culturally based generalization. This is Bob, my brother. This is Kathy, my colleague. This is Barak Obama. He is a Senator, a Democrat, black, a husband, a father, a son and a Presidential candidate.

For Simmel the generalizations function like storehouses of cultural knowledge. At a preconscious level, they tell us –and others- how to think and act in an indefinite number of social situations. To the extent that the generalizations mean the same thing to me that they mean to you, society is not only possible, it is as predictable as the sun in the Caribbean. Lack a consensus and, using another generalization, you can be as unwanted as a Pakistani in New York. The Pakistani may be darker than most African Americans but he or she is not black. America lacks a consensus “racial” generalization for South Asians so they become a “none of the above”. They are racial nothings; it is not a pretty generalization but it provides a modicum of social order until Americans make up their minds about South Asians, Arabs and other racial “misfits”.

Besides generalizations, society is possible because people are simultaneously “inside of it” and “outside of it”. If only because any society includes contradictory or competing information, people have the chance to question the received generalizations. Simmel called this our “extra social” nature and it does in fact make change possible. When women used two pintsized letters and a period to create a new generalization –the word Ms. - they began a revolution whose ripple effects are almost endless. Simmel said this helped make society possible because it offered a way to include change in an evolving society. Thus, to the extent that contemporary men grasp and accept the meanings implied by Ms., social interaction is once again both predictable and possible.

Simmel added one last insight. Never expect perfect harmony. But also understand that “individuality finds its place in the structure of generality, and, furthermore, that in spite of the unpredictable character of individuality, this structure is laid out as it were, for individuality and its functions.” Any society offered many thousands of recipes for living; from how to eat, to who we could and not marry. Follow the rules and a society can even manage for, say four hundred years, to define groups of people by what divides them; for whites and blacks the structure is laid out before they are born and as long as we use the approved generalizations, the structure is maintained and society is possible.

To repeat, Simmel never discussed issues of justice, equity or freedom. But, since this is a blog about “race” and ethnicity we must discuss those issues. What American society does is use a series of generalizations –race, white, black, person of color, nonwhite- to positively and negatively define the “racial” status of everyone on earth. As Albert Murray noted, the generalization nonwhite contains all the assumptions of white supremacy and segregation. White is the designer original and all the “nons” are nothing but God’s knockoffs. Nonwhite is a horrible generalization and Simmel tells us what is necessary to abolish it.

We must do nothing less than make society utterly impossible. Since the “racial” generalizations cited are vital storehouses of societal knowledge, this is a revolution at the deepest levels of everyday interaction. It invites chaos because, if another person uses these generalizations, we will refuse to abide by the rules of the game. For example, if anyone calls me white, I will not accept that generalization. I try to be polite and empathetic but I nevertheless stress that white people do not exist and the proof is in the pudding. Look in the mirror and white people are actually beige or light brown.

Some people call me “impossible”. But, that is exactly my intention. Because Simmel is correct about what makes society possible, the best way to achieve serious yet peaceful social change is to reject poisonous generalizations like white and black and embrace chaos until we achieve a new consensus rooted in new generalizations. As Simmel stressed, society is impossible without generalizations that, like a veil, hide our individuality. We are stuck with the need for generalizations but, because of our extra social natures, we are not stuck with nonsense and hate. Race, white, black, people of color and nonwhite can be eliminated if we agree not to use them. Each of us is an “impossible” revolutionary if we vote for chaos and agree to have a national debate about the conscious and deliberate creation of new generalizations that will define three hundred million people by what unites us rather than by what divides us.

Feminists paved the way. Without reading Simmel, they invented a new generalization that demands that men stop being men in the traditional sense of that social identity.

So, let’s use feminists as role models. Let’s make society impossible and willingly contemplate “racial” chaos because, as Simmel shows, that is the only way to destroy the old order and create a new one.

Senator Obama and the Flap about Other Languages

ronald fernandez — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:25:26 GMT

Senator Obama and the Flap about Speaking Other Languages

Drive into Abilene, Kansas in 1917 and you saw this sign:

SPEAK THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE

If you don’t know it – learn it

If you don’t like it – move out.

The sign appeared at the height of “The Americanization Movement”, a crusade (begun in roughly 1900) to transform the immigrants who threatened America’s Anglo Protestant core. Among others, Italians, Polish, Portuguese, and Greek immigrants promised to rot that core for at least two reasons: They came from inferior cultures; and they refused to relinquish their original beliefs, values and practices.

Like Hester Prynne’s scarlet letter, the newcomer’s accents and behaviors said that they were “hyphenated” Americans (e.g., Italian-Americans); Uncle Sam only wanted 100% Americans so the hyphens needed to immediately lose any attachment to their country of origin. As Theodore Roosevelt literally shouted it out, “This country is a crucible, a melting-pot in which many different race strains are being fused into one. If some of the material remains as an unfused lump, it is worthless in itself, and it is also a detriment to the rest of the mixture.”

It was this mixture of self-satisfaction, ethnocentrism, and zeal that led, in 1924, to a gigantic contradiction. As the Americanizers enthusiastically celebrated the melting pot metaphor, Congress passed, in 1924, immigrant legislation that slammed the door in the face of virtually everyone on earth. So called Asians took the biggest hit; they got zero slots. But the core was protected and revitalized to such an extent that, from 1924 to 1965, England, Germany and Ireland received almost two-thirds of America’s legal immigration slots.

America never opened its doors to the world. It opened its doors to people from certain parts of Europe and, when Senator Obama recently asked us to learn more than the English language he touched a cultural hot button that stretches from Senator McCain right back to his hero, Teddy Roosevelt. Our Anglo Protestant core may be pure European but one strong strain of our culture doesn’t like foreigners in general and immigrants in particular. We are better than they are. And even when they do exactly what we ask them to do, we still give them a very hard time.

Consider these stories from two of my students. One is second generation Italian, the other is second generation Spanish. After arriving in the United States, each of their fathers learned to speak English and they speak it with authority and fluency. However, both men still have heavy accents. Let the family go to a restaurant and the students said their dads are often ridiculed – with ‘can you believe this’ stares or requests to repeat and repeat- when they order the meal. In Connecticut, the allegedly liberal Constitution State, the servers treat the fathers like hyphenated Americans even though the men speak two or more languages and the wait staff speaks one.

Americans are superior; even when we are making fools of ourselves.

We could argue that accents are all-American; that anyone who takes the time to learn the language deserves applause rather than humiliation. Instead, many of us criticize the immigrants for their halting efforts; or argue that they do not want to learn English oblivious to what is happening, for example, on Spanish TV. Here in Connecticut the daily ads feature an English language tape set that sells for $400; buy the tapes hawked by opera singer Placido Domingo and the price can double. So, is the logic is that “these people” do not want to learn English but they are willing to pay big bucks for language programs whose salespeople stress the tight linkage between success and speaking the English language.

If we really want newcomers to learn English why not follow the example of Israel? Faced with new immigrants speaking many languages, they instituted, in 1948, ulpans, schools where the newcomers learned –for free- the Hebrew language. The ulpans are still in place as I write and they offer one means to assist newcomers to learn a basic skill – the dominant language of their new country of origin.

Senator Obama never disagreed with learning English; on the contrary, he said that “the immigrants, absolutely, need to learn English.” What pushed the 100% American cultural button was his sense of envy for Europeans who spoke two or more languages. Critics of Obama argue that it’s a necessity in Europe; to interact across the continents many countries people must speak more than one language. In America we can speak English from Augusta to Eureka. So, we don’t need to learn another language. Only the immigrants have that obligation.

This is self defeating nonsense. In Iraq we have almost no one who speaks Arabic. How do you gain good intelligence if you cannot speak the language? Equally important, a friend –he is a born abroad bottle engineer- tells me that in meetings in Europe, the conversations seamlessly move from one language to another. Will Americans sit there like ignoramuses? And, as China gains more and more economic power, will we tell them to speak in English or we will do business elsewhere?

In a global economy, remaining monolingual helps guarantee economic suicide. But, another, arguably more important reason to learn a second language is to open ourselves to other people’s cultures. Words are like trunks; they contain layers and layers of stored beliefs and values. Efforts to learn another language helps us poke through the trunk and, as we see how other people think, we have the opportunity to examine our own way of thinking.

So far as I can see one essential component of creativity is the willingness to continually expose ourselves to different beliefs, values and opinions. So, in assessing Senator Obama’s suggestion do we want to imitate the bunker mentality of Theodore Roosevelt?

Or, do we want to see how other people think and grow as human beings because we are as open to other languages and cultures as we are to the “ethnic” food those “worthless” immigrants create in some of the nation’s best and most expensive restaurants.

Obscene and Immoral: The "Fast Tracking" of Illegal Immigrants in Postville, Iowa

ronald fernandez — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 05:51:16 GMT

Obscene and Immoral:

The “Fast Tracking” of Illegal Immigrants in Postville, Iowa

Even the Rabbis were illegal! Two brought in from Canada blessed the fowl; meanwhile government documents about the Agriprocessors kosher plant reveal that the rabbis often ignored God, Moses and the Ten Commandments. Described only as a “Hasidic Jew”, one floor supervisor duct-taped the eyes of a Guatemalan worker”; he then “took one of the meat hooks and hit the Guatemalan with it.” The warrant notes that, “apparently”, the sightless man received “no serious injuries”. (http://www.aila.org/content/fileviewer.aspx?docid=25454&linkid=177821)

On the Web, the Agriprocessor homepage assures us that they “approach their business in the context of a deep religious tradition.” Perhaps it is a Neanderthal faith? Or, instead of burning people at the stake, these guys slowly roast the workers over an assembly line that recorded numerous amputations. The government’s application for a warrant stresses that, “Your affiant is aware, from his training and experience, that those who employ illegal aliens often exploit the aliens in various ways…exploitation can take on many forms, such as requiring employees to provide money or other things of value to maintain employment or secure better working hours or tasks, providing sub-par working conditions, failing to pay overtime, and physically harassing or mistreating employees.”

If forced to take a multiple choice exam, Agriprocessor could check only one box: All of the above. The government was right but, when it finally served its warrant, Washington focused on the exploited rather than the exploiters. The infidels got a fine while the workers were “driven single-file in groups of 10, shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles, chains dragging as they shuffled” out of the slaughter house to, believe it or not, the National Cattle Congress. As Erik Camayd-Freixas stresses (http://www.galleons.org/Joomla/content/view/94/1/) the National Cattle Congress “is a sixty acre cattle fairground that had been transformed into a sort of concentration camp or detention center.” Converting 23 trailers into courtrooms, Homeland Security forced its staff and interpreters to work overtime. On a white collar assembly line that lasted from 7A.M. to midnight, the Fed “fast tracked” workers who, since they often could not read and write, heard interpreters offer this deal.

Admit that you used a false social security card (five months in jail) or plead guilty to “aggravated identity theft”( a mandatory two years in jail); in essence, even though you cannot read and write, you would admit that you deliberately stole the social security identity from an individual who did not know that he had been robbed! As Camayd Freixas explains, of the 983 cards examined by the authorities, only one “happened to coincide by chance with an (actual) reported identity theft.”

Confused? So were the workers. Therefore, lawyers who each represented 17 clients had the interpreters explain that, since aggravated identity theft meant far more time in jail, the worker needed to accept the lesser charge and move the line along. Fast tracking resembled the kind of justice meted out in Guatemala, so as the workers sometimes pretended to read the charges, they “signed” the documents with a comment like this. “Your honor, you know that we are here because of the needs of our families. I beg that you find it in your heart to send us home before too long, because we have a responsibility to our children, to give them an education, clothing, shelter and food.”

Legally the Judge had no choice. Morally, he made this comment. “I appreciate the fact that you are very hard working people, who have come here to do no harm. And I thank you for coming to this country to work hard.”

Reading this comment, I was reminded of another found at the Presidential Library of Ronald Reagan. Considering –twenty-five years ago- a possible legalization of 3 to 6 million workers, the President noted that he did not want to reward people for breaking the law. In addition Ronald Reagan “did not want to run the risk of corrupting people who for the most part revealed a strong devotion to the work ethic.” If he amnestied them into America, they could be eligible for welfare; perversely, America would be corrupting the Mexicans whose presence allegedly corrupted the country that allowed them to work so hard.

Here are two indisputable facts. First, the Latinos arrested in 2008 and in 1982 are, overwhelmingly, hard working, family centered men and women. Second, a memo sent to President Reagan by his Attorney General indicates that, even in 1981, more than 75% of the illegal immigrants worked in foul secondary industries like meat packing. We have relied on illegal labor for more than eighty years but, rather than embrace the facts, we punish the hard working people on whom we rely.

It is, for example, supreme hypocrisy to complain about the illegal workers and forget the yeoman’s work they are doing to shore up the Social Security system. Money deducted from false social security cards goes into the “Earnings Suspense File”. Camayd-Freixas notes (and he is quite correct) that that fund now contains more than $600 BILLION. Social Security happily blends the illegal money into the legal accounts, with this result: People like the workers at Postville “currently subsidize the retirement of legal residents at a rate of $8.9 billion a year.”

President Reagan worried about corruption. The problem was that he focused on the wrong group. It is our senior citizens who are receiving welfare; more specifically, a senior who lives in Phoenix, basks in the sun, and complains about the illegals better hope that the Guatemalans keep on working. Otherwise Phoenix may dry up as fast as the senior’s social security check.

Here is what we need to do: Listen to Senator Barak Obama. He asked people –all people- to accept responsibility for their children and their families. Can anybody be more caring, more responsible than a worker who, in one case, walked for forty days to cross the Rio Grande and wind up at Agriprocessors?

On a continent that extends from Buenos Aires to Anchorage, these are the best of Americans.

And the sooner we accept that fact, the sooner we will follow the advice of Rabbi Henry Karp. In a May 31^st, 2008 letter to Davenport’s Quad City Times, the Rabbi noted that “all Americans with immigrant ancestors should be joining together in efforts to bring about just and most important of all, humane immigration law reforms. We should dedicate our efforts to the memories of our ancestors who came to these shores and provided us with the good lives we enjoy today.”

In my own case, my father arrived in 1916. I do not know if he was legal or illegal. He never learned to read and write; and he worked in a factory for 43 years so that I had the opportunities he never enjoyed. One way to respect this legacy is to embrace –with an amnesty- the hard working immigrants who want to do for their kids what my father and mother did for us.