We All Need Mirrors: A Response to the "Two Americas."

In the discussion over the "two Americas," one of the basic premises of Ross Douthat's op-ed article is that the relationship between a minority/immigrant group and the American society overall are based upon give-and-take/compromise/exchanges of contributions, etc.  In inter-group relationships in society, this is a very natural demand and dynamic, without which the society may not function properly.

Now, the question is not whether this dynamic should exist.  To pretend or believe that it should not exist would cause a disservice not only to the Non-Muslim majority but also to the Muslim minority/immigrant group.  But, as with many other minority/immigrant issues,  this one needs to be handled prudently and delicately.  Of course, there is merit in the concern that tones expressed regarding this dynamic could reveal an unease or an outright xenophobia.  Even so, perhaps there is a logical reasoning to at least be willing to consider multiple angles and present them for a fuller evaluation.

The question [---and this is part where the author perhaps should have been more thoughtful, and one in which I find the tone troubling---] should be over the PARAMETERS of the dynamic of give-and-take/ compromise/ exchange of contributions/etc.  In a similar note, I am puzzled by why the author chose to use the word "assimilation" instead of "integration."  For "assimilation" lies closer to a "blending in" to form a more cohesive whole [consider how a soup is made, with all the individual elements being almost rendered variously indistinguishable].  While "integration" moves more towards a coming together of diversified parts to form a more cohesive whole [consider how a salad is made; all its separate elements form a unit, but they are individually distinguishable even in the same bowl].  Both integration and assimilation have just about the same objective/end result in mind, with markedly different paths (and the different paths/methods can have different implications for both minorities/immigrants and the overall society).

I am struck by the Douthat's apparent negligence (or willful omission, at worst) of the [mostly] tragic history of Native American Indians in what became the Continental U.S.  I am struck also by the inconsistency in reasoning and tone this attitude could invite.  The potential exists for an inconsistency of standards that invite one of set of parameters in the analysis over the relationship between the majority Native Indians and predominantly Anglo-Saxon settlers in one (historical) case, and standards that invite another set of diametrically opposite parameters in the current context of Muslims in a predominantly Anglo-Saxon America.  

By almost every measure, the true indigenous inhabitants of the Americas (both South and North) were tribal groups like the Cheyenne, Sioux, Shawnee, Cherokee, etc.  Even by the time of the American Revolution (1775), the European settlers (mostly Anglo-Saxon) and their descendants were still much "relatively new" in comparison to the Natives.  Indeed, the first permanent major English settlement in the Continental U.S., Jamestown, Virginia, was established in 1607.  Much of the same could be said about the American settlers who migrated westward of the Mississippi River, and the Indians who suffered later on.

Had the author lived during the those critical historical periods, what ideas would he have penned then for Native-Settler relations concerning the basic premise(s) upon which he insists for contemporary American society's relationship with Muslims now?  Certainly, as a writer looking back in time, he would've noticed that the analysis requires a different perspective into demographic compositions and dynamics from which to work.  Almost by parallel, he would have characterized that past society as being a narrative of "the two Native Indian Americas."  

In such case, "the first Native America" would be reserved for the unconditionally accepting Native America which opened its arms wide to Plymouth and Jamestown colonists.  As newcomers in a distant and strange land the early colonists likely would not (and could not) have survived, owing to devastating epidemics of foreign illnesses (to which they were not immune) and to famine.  Indeed, mortality rates were relatively high during those first years.  Indigenous tribes' support and goodwill thus were crucial to those colonists' well-being, and by extension to the enduring establishment of the thirteen remaining majority-Anglo-Saxon colonies (the earliest foundation of what the U.S. as it is today).  The "second Native America" would have consisted of tribes that began to distrust and resist the settler colonists.  Under such context, would he have been sympathetic to his characterizations of "the second America" to which he sympathetically exhibits in this article?  What would have been his attitude to other crucial turning points in U.S. history which also had a profound impact upon Native Americans, such as "Manifest Destiny?"  

  

A thoroughly thoughtful appreciation of this history still casts a long and deep shadow and stain on our national consciousness.  A shadow and stains from which we still have to apparently fully learn.   Seeking to be fully aware of seemingly callous "adoption" of Native American property should cause us to stop for a moment and think deeply.  The standards of tolerance and mutual respect as defined by "the first America" would contrast sharply with prominently-negative historical treatment of Native Americans.  It may perhaps even contrast with some contemporary considerations of them.     

For example, apparently among the most prominent and enduring conscious imagery of Native Americans widespread throughout the U.S. today are those used in professional sports teams and logos.  At face value, these images hardly say anything about the legacy and history of Native American cultures, societies, rituals, beliefs, customs, or contributions to the North American landscape.  I am not suggesting that anyone who has even so much attended or watched a major sport like American football or baseball game is complicit in this regard.  Nor do I hold anything against professional sports.   

But I do think it is worthy to pause and ask a few questions.  How did names---like the Cleveland Indians, Washington Redskins, and Atlanta Braves---come to be used (in name and physical image) in professional sports industries?  Do/did Native Americans object to commercial uses of their likenesses and to the commercial uses of variations thereof?  Were they to object would we stop engaging in such use?  Would we develop ways to compensate them for the use of these likenesses, and if so how?  And even if they do not/did not object, how might many of us feel if the situation was put in reverse?  With scores of Native Americans mimicking non-Native Indian likenesses in sports uniforms, trademark/logos, and so on, made to look like Anglo-American settlers?  [Of course, such behavior pales in comparison to other treatments of the Native American narratives such as portrayals in Old Western movies and inexpensive Old Western novels popular in the time period.  I point this one out as a relative measurement and because of its ongoing use.]  

          

Perhaps Douthat does not believe or think that allusions to historical realities (and residual issues) dealing with Native Americans apply in the case of America's treatment of Muslims in the United States.  Regardless, this is an argument that has been made in other minority and immigrant cases.  People from across the southern border will 'change' the America as we know it (assumed for the worse)---politically, cultural, economically, and socially.  And so they must be fiercely and aggressively resisted.  Or, they must 'assimilate'--that is, extending Douthat's tone and definitions---abide by the rules of the "Second America" so that they are, by the grace of the "First America," accepted among Americans' ranks.  But there was also a time when Anglo-American settlers and European explorers were different and alien to the American continents all together.  Undoubtedly American Indians faced many of the same questions we do today, and the collectivity of their responses are a diversity of resistances mixed in with accommodations.  

But the America as we currently know it has been different from a few centuries ago when Native tribes dominated its landscape; it was the non-Natives, not the indigenous tribes, who have "prevailed" in shaping most of the "character" of present-day United States.  And on the whole it was mostly the non-Natives, not the indigenous tribes, who insisted on others following their lead and example.  Today's "Natives" include a mix that, collectively, are vastly different from pre-colonization's tribes.  I realize that a discussion of immigration is far too complex to be covered in any summarized points here.  But there are (worrying) undertones I find in some immigration arguments that are strikingly similar to the characterizations presented in Douthat's "two Americas" lenses.        

If anything, all of us are in need of mirrors.  The author's article started off promising.  He has a right to point out that sensitivity on the part of Muslims should be part-and-parcel of decisions over the Park51 community center.  Yet the article's preachy mood carried a seeming lack of internal mirror that, in espousing and cheering all the qualities of "the two Americas," rendered it instead more disappointing than enlightening.