multiculturalism

“Black people—specifically, young black people—do seem to use Twitter differently from everyone else on the service. They form tighter clusters on the network—they follow one another more readily, they retweet each other more often, and more of their posts are @-replies—posts directed at other users. It’s this behavior, intentional or not, that gives black people—and in particular, black teenagers—the means to dominate the conversation on Twitter.”

So, these “blacktags” {perhaps made famous by #ifsantawasblack}  are more prone to go viral. According to Baratunde Thurston, the Web editor of the Onion::

“Twitter works very naturally with that call-and-response tradition—it’s so short, so economical, and you get an instant signal validating the quality of your contribution. (If people like what you say, they retweet it.)”

It is interesting for me to watch the Sotomoayor confirmation hearings while I’m working on a manuscript on multiculturalism. I think the whole “Wise Latina” imbroglio could be clarified by a look at Charles Taylor’s classic essay on the politics of recognition. In it, he emphasizes the great psychic harm done to individuals who are misrecognized in a society:

misrecognition shows not just a lack of due respect. It can inflict a grevious wound, saddling its victims with a crippling self-hatred.  Due recognition is not just a courtesy we owe people.  it is a vital human need.

This misrecognition causes damage becuase we are dialogical in our identity formation (i.e. reading cues from others in making assessments of our own self worth). This reality has led us politically towards the affirmation of a discourse of recognition where we actively seek to address misrecognition in our society. Sotomayor’s explanation of her “wise Latina” comments in her testimony on Tuesday suggests an effort on her part to combat this idea of misrecognition — that Latino/a’s are not capable of being lawyers and judges.

The pushback to Sotomayor on the right occurs because, as Talyor highlights in his essay, a politics of recognition has come to mean two distinct things. One one hand recognition can be defined as the recognition of commonality — the idea that we are all worth of equal dignity. This universality approach to the politics of recognition has been embraced by the right, at least rhetorically. The inference is that we in public life should emphasize our commonality.

Sotomayor’s response was to invoke a second way of thinking about the politics of recognition (i.e. group differences are valuable in public discourse and should be encouraged). Here’s her defense of her comments:

I think life experiences generally, whether it’s that I’m a Latina or was a state prosecutor or have been a commercial litigator or been a trial judge and an appellate judge, that the mixture of all of those things, the amalgam of them help me to listen and understand.

Or as Taylor puts it:

with the politics of difference, what we are asked to recognize is the unique identity of this individual or group, their distinctiveness from everyone else. The idea is that it is precisely this distinctness that has been ignored, glossed over, assimilated to a dominant or majority identity. And this assimilation is the cardinal sin against the ideal of authenticity.

Of course when put in the harsh spotlight of American political theater, Sotomayor seemingly did what most smart people do — she retreated to what is politically expedient and in the American context, a politics of difference is not politically viable. Here’s her response to Sen. Pat Leahy’s question on the “wise Latina” issue:

“I want to state upfront, unequivocally and without doubt: I do not believe that any racial, ethnic or gender group has an advantage in sound judging,” Sotomayor said. “I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge, regardless of their background or life experiences.”

Sounds very universalistic to me. But in thinking about it more, I’ve decided that she’s not walking anything back, but rather she believes both things.

This multiculturalism stuff is sticky business. While both a universalist and particuarlistic claim originate from the same universality place, (all people deserve human dignity, all people have distinct identities worthy of recognition), they produce distinctly different outcomes. While a universality stance is blind to group differences, a politics of difference calls for additional benefits/concessions for specific groups (Quebecquois, Aboriginal peoples, etc.)

The trick, I think, is being able to hold both concepts in your head simultaneously. There are spaces where universalism is appropriate and there are spaces where particularity is appropriate. The challenge is figuring out where those spaces are. it is kinda cool that this is even coming up as a point of contention in American politics more frequently.

I’m doing a lot of reading on the issue of multiculturalism and justice and I came across this piece by Amytra Sen in the Guardian (HT: Notes on Politics, Theory and Philosophy)

The idea of justice demands comparisons of actual lives that people can lead, rather than a remote search for ideal institutions. That is what makes the idea of justice relevant as well as exciting in practical reasoning.

Here, Sen is critiquing universal theories of justice (John Rawls as an example) that seek to prescribe one set of institutions for all persons. This form of justice, extended to all people, represents a “thin” form of multiculturalism which emphasizes our commonalities. The issue with having one form of justice that applies to all is that it ignores contextuality. It disembodies beings from their particular experience. The flip side then of a “thin” multicutluralism is a notion of justice that recognizes and supports difference (Iris Marion Young’s work as an example). This emphasis on individual distinctiveness situates people within their unique contexts by seeking to affirm group rights. This would be a “thicker” notion of multicultural justice. The problem with this approach is that in recognizing difference, “thick” multiculturalism ignores the real need for individuals to make collective decisions.

In the work I’m doing on diversity at public universities, I find that institutions are moving towards a thinner notion of multicultural justice. Court decisions, pressure from regents, donors and the business community all compel institutions to frame diversity in a less controversial language of diversity as a “competence” or a “skill set” that individuals need to be competitive in a global marketplace. This approach suggests that diversity is reducible to a uniform set of tools that can be applied to any context. This idea of “plug and play” diversity (apologies to Richard Florida) ignores the idysyncratic and ad hoc nature of dealing with others. This is what I like so much about Sen’s quote. Instead of teaching students to be deductively “culturally competent,” we should be teaching students to be inductive learners, building up their base of knowledge from experience and opening themselves to the ad-hoc and contingent nature of different interactions. I’m a fan of Charles’ Taylor’s call for “adhockishness” in our interactions with diverse others.