Melville J. Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge

Introduction

1 Introduction It is bad to arrive too quickly at the one or the many.—Plato, Philebus W e begin the new century like we began the last, debating the proper approach toward social and political concerns relating to race and culture. Yet the terms and the nature of the debate have changed. At the beginning of the twentieth century, race and culture were generally framed in hierarchical terms, with white Anglo-Saxon Protestants at the top of the developmental scale. In the United States, as in much of the rest of the world, white men held powerful political and social sway; African Americans, in particular, were subjugated politically, economically, and socially. Abroad, Africans and Asians su√ered similarly under Western imperialism. Those who were nonwhite, non-Western, or female had little voice in global politics or in the academy. According to mainstream scholars, African culture was nonexistent, and black American culture was merely a distorted version of Anglo-American culture. Today, much has changed. Nationalist movements vanquished Western colonialism in Africa and Asia. In the United States, social movements for civil rights and women’s liberation overturned legally sanctioned racial and gender inequities. Scholars now generally reject the notion of a social hierarchy based on race, gender, or culture. Indeed, African, African American, and women’s studies have emerged as respectable academic subjects. These far-reaching changes, however, have sparked a new global discourse on race and culture that is fraught with controversy. In the United States, many of today’s political debates are anchored in culture; political battles and elections are often won or lost on the basis of cultural questions. Many liberals argue for a national acceptance and celebration of cultural diversity, a notion that includes Introduction 2 gender, sexual orientation, phenotype, and religion, along with race and ethnicity. Advocates of cultural diversity in education and politics have popularized the term ‘‘multiculturalism’’ in support of their goals. In this political climate, many social and cultural groups that long su√ered from discrimination now emphasize their group identity to make political and social gains. Women, African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans , in particular, have asserted their political identities, emphasized the significance of cultural heterogeneity, and analyzed the harm caused by past sociopolitical hierarchies.∞ Although these strategies have yielded important gains in the United States—a≈rmative action policies, civil rights legislation, black studies programs, women’s studies programs—some liberals and many conservatives have criticized what they term ‘‘identity politics’’ for creating social divisiveness and intolerance toward opposing views.≤ For example , liberal sociologist Todd Gitlin has argued that identity politics has so fragmented American society that it has limited our capacity to make a unified attack on poverty and economic inequality throughout the world.≥ On the other side, many conservatives and religious fundamentalists have attacked identity politics as part of their larger battle against the ‘‘immorality’’ of popular culture. In this battle they have decried a≈rmative action, feminism, and reproductive rights; demonized homosexuals ; attacked immigration policies; and blamed poverty and crime on the ‘‘immoral’’ lifestyles of the poor. Meanwhile, conservatives such as social critic Dinesh D’Souza argue that identity politics has led to intolerance for opposing views and an irrational stifling of free speech.∂ Finally , conservatives attack multiculturalism ‘‘and its demonic twin, ‘political correctness,’ ’’ as stand-ins for their distaste for liberals’ emphasis on minorities’ rights.∑ Paralleling this American debate on identity politics is an international debate on the relative merits of cultural particularism and universalism. As cultural and ethnic groups in the United States have fought for a greater voice in politics and society, so have formerly disenfranchised countries sought to assert their identities in international politics. This has led to contentious debates about specific cultural rights versus universal human rights. For example, in the decades since the 1947 adoption of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (udhr), newly independent states in Africa and Asia have challenged the document ’s generality. They have argued that the udhr was created with Introduction 3 limited non-Western input and that it is ethnocentric. Critics find untenable the notion of defining human rights universally, across all cultures. If cultures create their own values and all cultures are worthy of respect, how can a single set of human rights be defined and applied?∏ Thus contemporary arguments about race and culture have been often polarized between those who see cultural...