America’s ‘Identity Crisis’
| AR Articles on the Demographic Transformation |
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| Writing on the Wall (Aug. 2001) |
| Birth Rates: Who is Winning the Race? (Nov. 2000) |
| If We Do Nothing (Jun. 1996) |
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The Bradley Project on America‘s National Identity issued a report which contends that America’s national identity is being weakened by the spread of multiculturalism and globalization. The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation established this project in 2007. The vast majority of the 2,421 respondents in a Harris Interactive National Survey commissioned by the Bradley Project expressed concern that American society is increasingly polarized and divided—and that knowledge of the nation’s common heritage and ideals is eroding. The results are disturing and point to a growing problem that requires attention.
The study reveals that 84 percent maintain that there is a unique American national identity. This consists of viewing American identity as based on a set of ideas and on a way of life—rather than founded on ethnicity. Those surveyed define American national identity as a commitment to freedom: This includes free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of opportunity and political freedom. The American ethos contains the following traits: competition, individualism, optimism, self-reliance, religious faith and patriotism. The majority of respondents view America as a unique democracy; the nation upholds the rule of law and a has a formidable Constitution.
Yet 63 percent maintain that American national identity is growing weaker; 24 percent state that Americans are already so divided we can no longer sustain a common identity. Most alarming is the result among younger respondents: Those below age 35 are more likely to declare that there is no national identity. This points to a failure by the current generation of adults to transmit the nation’s heritage to the youth.
{snip}
The Bradley Project on American National Identity seeks to “initiate a conversation” on America’s “identity crisis.” The study reveals that the overwhelming majority share a fear that America is being balkanized; 80 percent of whites, 86 percent of blacks and 74 percent of Hispanics are concerned that America is increasingly divided along ethnic and cultural lines. Americans can therefore begin to demand changes in their communities based on the evidence available. For example, 89 percent state that new immigrants must be Americanized - which means they must learn English and embrace American culture. Also, the majority of parents insist that they would be upset if their children were taught in school that America is “fundamentally a racist country.” The majority of participants also agree that citizenship rather than ethnicity should be the focus of education.
The advocates for this national conversation insist that their aim is to redress the balance: They are not demanding the creation of a uniform America, but an America in which both diversity and unity are in harmony. They declare that the pendulum has swung too far toward a devaluation of all that is good in America; there is instead a constant harping on America’s flaws. They also state that there is too much emphasis on our differences rather than on areas of common ground.
The study recommends that American history be taught in elementary schools and colleges; this includes teaching primary documents and a celebration of American heroes. The authors of the report are calling for the end to the celebration of the generic Presidents Day and the restoration of the birthdays of Washington and Lincoln as national holidays. They also insist that newcomers must be taught American values, that we should provide civic education based on explaining the principles of American democracy (not “global citizenship”) and that we should institute a Presidential Award for American Citizenship to students and new immigrants. (We add English literacy to the list.)
{snip}
(Posted on June 10, 2008)
Comments
“Those under 35 least likely to believe in an American Indentity”
Well, here is what would wise them up. They should go to the library archives, they should visit various websites on the internet, all having to do with American history that concerns itself with the building of this nation. There they would see who it was that built the nation they live in from the ground up. Whenever I have posted this suggestion on various blogs I will get the most violent reactions.
“How can you say only whites Europeans built up the nation.”
“Your crazy, a multitude of different people including minorities built it up.”
“The slaves built it up while white people sat on their butts, and whipped them, etc.”
“The Chinese built it up because of the railroads.”
Yet, in the historical archives, you will see the faces, during the industrial revolution, of the men, women, and children, who before any labor laws, were mostly responsible for the creation of the new nation. Multiculturalists, and others however, prefer to believe and teach fairyrtales.
Posted by Bobby at 6:03 PM on June 10
“Those over thirty-five belonging in that group most likely to remember how much it`s changed.
Posted by at 7:06 PM on June 10
Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall.
Not all the king’s horses and all the king’s men,
could put Humpty back together again.
Posted by at 7:18 PM on June 10
America’s national identity is being weakened by the spread of multiculturalism and globalization.
So, the social engineering in the U.S. works as planned.
Also, it’s factually justified now to call multiculturalism and globalization anti-American.
Posted by A Reader at 8:13 PM on June 10
Laughably, this excerpt says it all:
“The advocates for this national conversation insist that their aim is to redress the balance: They are not demanding the creation of a uniform America, but an America in which both diversity and unity are in harmony.”
This is like asking for the sun and moon to appear simultaneously in the sky, in a “harmony” of luminance!
This cannot be, it is impossible, as is requiring that multiculturalism lose its anti-white slant or stop indoctrinating that America is “fundamentally a racist country,” while also bringing diversity and unity into “harmony.” This is because this wistful (dare I say Neo Con) alternative, retains an egalitarian veneer alleging that all humans, irregardless of race, can be transmuted socially and culturally into a common breed. It ignores that there are differences in ability and intelligence, that cannot be explained away simply by decreeing it so. In fact, multiculturalism stumbles forward only because (no matter how irrationally) it does blame and slander whites as causing all American nonwhites’ failures, as being the result of “ historically entrenched racism” or “white privilege.” Remove this from the equation, and a resulting dissonance is going to be generated that is even less easily explained away and more ludicrously unable to be maintained.
Stripping away diversity’s key “strength,” known as “white guilt,” can only end a paradigm of idiocy, with an implosion of insanity into it.
Sort of like Gorbachev’s “glastnos,” it asks for honesty to maintain an impossible Marxist fantasy.
As always, God help us all!
Posted by John PM at 8:57 PM on June 10
Even the traditional conservatives I know seem to have retreated into a world where all they care about is themselves. They may fly the flag and “support the troops” hate “big government” and all the usual non-intellectual thinking styles that have all too often gone with being a conservative, but they will not wake up to what is going on. They seem to just want to pretend its the ’70s and the new Nashville Star program or whatever it is will help them to continue that existence on the Island of Denial.
I hope that I am wrong and that at least there will be a return to teaching real history and the restoration of the traditional American identity, which by the way, includes intellectual enlightment in the way of Franklin, Paine, Washington and Jefferson. But I am afraid that it is far too late and the actual American population has been so diluted with new arrivals from everywhere that it is impossible to make them Americans - they have made America something else.
Posted by Whiteplight at 9:07 PM on June 10
My great-grandfather came through Ellis Island from Germany. Being “americanized” was part of the process to enter into the harbor of New York City. It was nothing to turn someone away that was considered not “suitable”. If own own good history shows what processes were taken to bring imigrants in, we should look to the same processes to enact for today.
Posted by mark at 9:15 PM on June 10
The minuses of multiculturalism are so numerous and wrong-headed it’s just amazing that a study is needed to determine that such idiocy is wrong and will result in Balkanization.
Of course everything the authors suggest as a remedy would take this nation off the road in its journey to violent break up.
But there’s no way in hell one single suggestion they made will be acted on.
I’m glad to see we still have some sanity within our ranks, but it’s too little, too late. Yes, we need change, but not the kind that accelerates toward Balkinization by a secular society, but that’s exactly what we will be getting no matter who the next pres is. Our speed toward degeneration will be fast enough with McCain, but it will be at lightening speed with the Obamanation.
Posted by Ranger at 9:21 PM on June 10
“This includes free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of opportunity and political freedom. The American ethos contains the following traits: competition, individualism, optimism, self-reliance, religious faith and patriotism. The majority of respondents view America as a unique democracy; the nation upholds the rule of law and a has a formidable Constitution.”
The problem is that most immigrants don’t possess many of those kinds of traits to any appreciable degree. We’re becoming more diverse while increasingly losing ground on our freedoms.
Posted by at 9:50 PM on June 10
The study reveals that 84 percent maintain that there is a unique American national identity. This consists of viewing American identity as based on a set of ideas and on a way of life—rather than founded on ethnicity. Those surveyed define American national identity as a commitment to freedom: This includes free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of opportunity and political freedom. The American ethos contains the following traits: competition, individualism, optimism, self-reliance, religious faith and patriotism. The majority of respondents view America as a unique democracy; the nation upholds the rule of law and a has a formidable Constitution.
A friend once told me Freud psychoanalyzed himself and then projected his diagnosis onto the world. Just desserts, perhaps, but I don’t know if it’s true.
I do know that the silly propositional nationhood described above came about from American whites (primarily of British stock) psychoanalyzing themselves and applying the diagnosis to a “set of values.” It’s absurd, and of course it’s also self-destructive. It can’t last, any more than a group’s commitment to sterilizing its children at birth could.
Posted by at 9:50 PM on June 10
Unfortunately,this is the last place you will ever see this very important report mentioned.
Posted by at 10:25 PM on June 10
I attended this meeting. Very impressive speakers. Highly educated people quietly rejecting the lunacy of Multiculturalism
Posted by at 10:31 PM on June 10
“They are not demanding the creation of a uniform America, but an America in which both diversity and unity are in harmony… They also state that there is too much emphasis on our differences rather than on areas of common ground.”
And as Eric Blair/George Orwell wrote: “War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.” I guess now we can add, “Diversity is Unity.”
Posted by enoughalready at 10:52 PM on June 10
I don’t much identify as being “American” anymore. Yes, it is where I live, but that is about it. I feel far more brotherhood with white Norwegians, Germans, Danes, Italians, etc., than any non-white American. And what America officially professes to stand for these days - pluralism, multiculturalism, ubertolerance/inclusion of any deviant behavior - is nothing I can align myself with. No…patriotism no longer holds any appeal for me, sadly.
Posted by Hank at 11:03 PM on June 10
We are polarized. The Big Sort. A remarkable number of elections are split close to 50/50.
Posted by at 12:05 AM on June 11
Our schools, national media, and the majority of politicans are in favor of multiculturism, diversity, and a form of liberalism that borders on socialism, thinking for yourself seems to be frowned on, indoctinating students at an early age has created this society we’re faced with, our schools are teaching more of an socialistic society, where everyone is equal, it will only get worse after the upcoming election.
Posted by abc at 6:11 AM on June 11
Bobby said at 6:03 PM on June 10:
Yet, in the historical archives, you will see the faces, during the industrial revolution, of the men, women, and children, who before any labor laws, were mostly responsible for the creation of the new nation. Multiculturalists, and others however, prefer to believe and teach fairyrtales.
Agreed. Genealogy is a great way to do this and it is an invaluable tool White parents should use to teach their children about real history, and real sacrifices.
The more research I do on my personal family history, the more proud I am to be White and an American. There is no today’s immigrant can be compared to those who settled this nation.
Posted by Jerry at 8:07 AM on June 11
““Those over thirty-five belonging in that group most likely to remember how much it`s changed.”
Exactly. I will be 40 next year and I can remember an America:
-when all of the clothing/goods were made in the USA(much better quality then too)
-when I could go anywhere and see nothing but mostly white people and hearing a non-white speaking spanish etc. was uncommon
-when most of our schools were all or mostly all-white
-when our schools had standards and were not dumbed down to help the minorities
-when people in low level jobs were mostly english- speaking americans
-when people in mid or higher level jobs were english-speaking americans, few foreign worker visas
-when social services for americans in need was much better because we didn’t spend it on tons of mexicans
-when you could rent a cheap apartment and you would be surrounded by whites and it would be safe.
-when there were far fewer slums and much less “ghetto”
-when our country culturally was much more unifed into a common euro-american identity
The sad thing is when I tell young family members this today, they can’t believe it. It sounds crazy to them. Ah, yes the good old days. Those over 35, like me, have seen the deterioration. I long for those days.
Posted by at 8:28 AM on June 11
Yes, Hank, it is sad that you don’t feel patriotism. I know exactly what you’re saying. Yet my heart still soars when they sing the National Anthem before a race and the Thunderbirds fly out, or I hear God Bless the USA on the radio. Why is that? Is it that part of us that longs for what SHOULD BE? What a time to be living in!
Posted by Mai Opinion at 10:57 AM on June 11
As someone who can speak for the under 35 group…
I have seen the founding documents first hand. I have visited numerous battlefields from South Carolina to Massachusetts. When I was in middle school I read everything that I could get my hands on that dealt with the Revolution and colonial America. And I must say that I concur, there is no American identity anymore.
A large percentage of younger people no longer believe in freedom of speech or the right to bear arms. So a belief in personal freedom can no longer be seen as a defining American trait.
Younger people know more about Civil Rights leaders than they know about the founding father, hence self-reliance can no longer be seen as an American virtue and socialism with the necessary powerful state in tow now rules the roost.
Too many younger whites today believe in the phenomenon known as “white guilt”. Whether it be blacks, native Americans, Chinese, etc. ad nauseum, younger whites actually are glad that their civilization’s time is coming to an end.
Whatever culture America has had has been commercialized to the point of rendering its cultural value obsolete (Christmas anyone?). Therefor I maintain that the key components of the modern American identity are McDonald’s and Wal-Mart, set to a Hip-Hop soundtrack, and bridled with a cultural ignorance not to be equaled on the face of the planet.
That is why I would also agree that America has no cultural-identity, or at least one that I willingly want to participate in.
Posted by Weißheit at 1:07 PM on June 11
“The sad thing is when I tell young family members this today, they can’t believe it. It sounds crazy to them. Ah, yes the good old days. Those over 35, like me, have seen the deterioration. I long for those days.”
Posted by at 8:28 AM on June 11
I’ve run into the same thing. I work part-time at a place that hires a lot of college students. When I say that years ago the crime rate was extremely low and you could walk the streets at any hour without fear, the word “carjacking” didn’t even exist, Newark and Detroit were nice cities, and young girls generally weren’t promiscuous they don’t believe me. They argue with me and say it must be that the people didn’t know how bad it was because the press didn’t report it. I actually had one young woman say adamantly that all teenage girls have sex, it has always gone on, and there’s no way you can stop it.
Unbelievable!
Posted by at 2:54 PM on June 11
Let’s call it what is it… communism. The communist agenda has had a field day in America that has lasted the better part of a century. You can see evidence of this everywhere you look from government schools to Hollywood. They have become increasingly emboldened over the years because American patriots have not been quietly and routinely eliminating these treasonous wretches. We have a lot of catching up to do…
Posted by at 3:16 PM on June 11
……”And as Eric Blair/George Orwell wrote: “War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.” I guess now we can add, “Diversity is Unity.”
Posted by enoughalready at 10:52 PM on June 10
> I have to say that when Bush proclaimed in 2005 that we were not “waging war, but waging peace” - I sat up straight in my seat.
Posted by Whiteplight at 3:34 PM on June 11
I was out with a friend on Monday, and he said a few very disheartening things about Marriage, family, and national identity. Specifically, he said that he hates it when someone says that they’re proud to be an American, because no one should be proud of something they didn’t do. He said it made as much sense as being proud that the moon wasn’t full that night.
I personally didn’t know what to think about that; the entire train of though never occurred to me, but now I find myself agreeing. Besides that, I’m not very proud of where this country has decided to go, and I’m kicking around the idea of going to Germany. It wouldn’t be easy, but better that than the race wars that are coming here.
Posted by Anglokraut at 3:50 PM on June 11
I too no longer feel like a patriotic American, considering how it’s now run by people who are anti-white. I’m more loyal to my race than to my country now, even to whites outside of America.
Posted by at 5:17 PM on June 11
With the loss of an American identity, people will gravitate even more towards identification based on Race rather than national identity.
Even with the entire wieght of the media, schools, government etc. pushing ruthlessly for a mixing of all races into one neutral mixed race. The effect is actually the opposite of that intended. Todays youth are more sharply self-segregated along racial lines than ever before, and they will continue to drift apart into race based tribal type groups as the nation’s identity continues to erode.
Even the effect of Black male/White female unions wich is so encouraged by the present culture has a further polarizing long term effect of creating the growth of a “High Yellow” class of Blacks wich will seperate into thier own light skinned Black group rather than identifying with Whites.
Posted by Mick at 5:44 PM on June 11
“Most alarming is the result among younger respondents: Those below age 35 are more likely to declare that there is no national identity. This points to a failure by the current generation of adults to transmit the nation’s heritage to the youth.”
This points to a lot of things unrelated to failure of the current generation to transmit heritage to the youth. Might the racial revolution of the 1960s and 1970s have a little bit to do with it? Maybe the out of control immigration of the 1980s to the present also added even more faultlines than our society already had to deal with? Top it all off with a heavy dosage of political correctness in schools (and many other American institutions), and … Voila! You have a society that’s so damaged, at this point it is unsalvageable.
I’m 44, and I can clearly remember when minorities were truly a numerical minority. I grew up in a suburb of New York. The majority of suburbs at that time (’60s & ’70s) were almost entirely white. So were the public schools I attended. And the education was unapologetically Eurocentric. (Sixties radicals didn’t yet have many teaching positions.)
I grew up in the America that Carleton Putnam did his best to speak up for and defend. Now that that America has been largely destroyed, I don’t have any feelings of allegiance to the present USA of hate crime legislation, diversity schemes, “wildings”, and mandatory anti-racist education.
Ten years ago I acquired dual citizenship through my Italian-born mother. I got it to honor her but I never thought I’d actually use it. I’m researching moving out of this country.
Posted by at 10:29 PM on June 11
Why should this be all that surprising to anyone?! People born after 1973.
This is the group that has been indoctrinated with multiculturalism, viwed a mainstream media that has shoved interracial dating, make White men look like idiots, promote anti-american feelings, promscuious sex and other vices down their throats.
Sad to say, I am not the least bit surprised by this study!
Posted by Gary at 1:36 AM on June 12
Just as America is split more racially than it’s ever been (half the kids under 5 in this ocuntry aren’t white); just as more and more people aren’t buying into our common national identity (because there isn’t one); just as fewer and fewer young men bother to join the military (which would be true even in peace time) - just as all of that is happening, America is headed into the belly of the economic beast. Our quality of life is getting ready to decline further and more rapidly than at any time since the Great Depression.
What will happen to the country? How will we cope with the fallout? What will the political repercussions be?
E Pluribus Unum was the motto of our founding fathers. Today it’s a bizarre mutation of the famous Three Musketeers motto: All for none and none for all.
Posted by Alan at 3:04 AM on June 12
When Lou Dobbs talked about this project I thought it was interesting and checked it out. But when I saw that the secular feminist Hirsi Ali was a panelist it turned me off. In my humble opinion it is fair to say that the identity crisis of America was created by the secular multicultural social engineers in various think tanks that influence government policies. Now the same elite gets together to scream fire which is a total joke. I know what E Pluribus Unum stands for and I also take it as in God we trust and not in the whims of paper-pushers.
Posted by Lisette at 8:20 AM on June 12
I’ve heard many white activists preach against this suggestion, but I am now quickly leaning towards it.
That suggestion is: the white flight movement into the north west states with the eventual succession from the nation. Not only will this leave behind the liberal whites to deal with their own problem (and hopefully wake up as a result of it) but it will also allow us to be united again. White activests against this porposal say it will leave us weaker than we are now even if we did succeed.
I’m all for it.
Posted by Ben at 10:42 AM on June 12
“With the loss of an American identity, people will gravitate even more towards identification based on Race rather than national identity.”
This is so true. In order to be unified, a nation, tribe etc. has to have a common culture. As we become more and more multicultural, we will grown further and further apart. Each race or ethnicity will gravitate towards their own and find unity with their own because their will be no common national identity. Multiculturalism will cause us to move further apart, not closer together. America will become a balkanized, tribalized country with the only thing in common being citizenship. We will fall eventually because if a nation has no identity or unity, there will be no loyalty and no culture to defend.
Posted by at 11:30 PM on June 12
The study recommends that American history be taught in elementary schools and colleges; this includes teaching primary documents and a celebration of American heroes.
This is White history though and the heroes are White. How will this unite blacks and latinos? Teach black history? The whole run of black history revolves around victimhood and oppression. Teach afrocentric history? Flying pyramids and great civilizations in Africa? Everyone else would snicker at such tales. What about hispanics and asians? There’s very little historic connection between these groups and American History. There’s the Mexican-American War but that would be divisive. There’s no common ground to work from.
Posted by at 11:35 PM on June 12
I am of the generation that has never known what a unified and white America was like. Someone above mentioned how history taught in schools was Eurocentric at one time. Can someone from that time elaborate on that for me please? You mean at one time they actually didn’t teach that ALL math and science came from the arabs and Chinese and was taught to us barbaric Europeans? Seriously, there seems to be this recent trend to quickly scim over what the Greeks did and not elaborate on them that much at all. I can’t believe the number of whites above 35 who believe this revisionist history even.
Posted by Courtney at 4:30 PM on June 14
“The American ethos contains the following traits: competition, individualism, optimism, self-reliance, religious faith and patriotism.”
Note that while competition and individualism can be valuable traits in moderation, excessive competition and individualism disrupt the unity of any nation. Nations must be built more on cooperation and group unity and group consciousness than the divisive forces of individualism and competition.
Note that most American white men view other American white men not as their comrades and countrymen but as their competitors in the workplace and in business. In contrast, non-white ethnic groups identify more with their countrymen and have a herd mentality that is conducive to group-defense. They run in packs whereas whites tend to be lone-wolves.
Posted by Tom at 3:57 PM on June 15