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PARTISAN REVrEW
was nigh: that a Western-style liberalism was on the verge of establisrung
itself the world over and that peace and amity were breaking out every–
where. But instead of that attractive version of the end of history, we are
now witnessing what some have called the retribalization of the world: a
violent turn against Western liberalism and its tradition of rationality, re–
spect for individual rights, and affirmation of a common good that tran–
scends the accidents of ethnic and racial identity. The demands for radical
multiculturalism and political correctness are academic coefficients of such
phenomena, and they can be effectively met only by a frank and nonpar–
tisan recognition of their reality.
Wilson
Moses: I think this point about the leading institutions is quite
correct. Post-modernist multiculturalism is based in the Ivy League schools
and influenced by deconstructionism, feminism, and gay studies. But
Mrocentrism is primarily a response
to
the emotional needs of faculty and
students and parents in innner-city schools and colleges. A desire
to
re–
spond to the needs of working-class, heterosexual black males is one of
the reasons for the Afrocentric emphasis on the personalities of Marcus
Garvey and Malcolm X, who stressed capital accumulation and tradi–
tional family values. Afrocentrism does not appeal to the "politically
correct" majority of Ivy League students or the black studies establish–
ment in Ivy League schools. I would not want to give the impression
that black nationalism is a masculinist movement. One of its more radical
proponents is Frances Cress Welsing, certainly no friend of the politically
correct. Such black conservative women as Elizabeth Wright and Janice
Ratteray have been openly sympathetic to Garveyite and Afrocentric
agendas and to working-class black males.
Afrocentrism is not deemed "politically correct" by the powers
within the multiculturalist movement. Afrocentrists are tranditionalists;
their opponents are post-modernists and left-liberals. Afrocentrists have
advocated separate schools for males and females. They work closely with
parents' groups and want to see children attending school in uniform -
blazers for the boys, plaid skirts for the girls. Teachers' unions have often
opposed the aims of black nationalists and Afrocentrists. At the elemen–
tary school level, Mrocentrists also have a commitment to religious values
and support religious education - Catholic, Protestant, and Islamic.
Black nationalists are more comparable to Hasidic Jews than to the po–
litically correct left-liberals. I found it not surprising that so many black
nationalists, conservatives, and religious fundamentalists supported the
nomination of Clarence Thomas. He had no support on the Ivy League
campuses, but Louis Farrakhan supported him. Afrocentrism has little to
do with the politically correct multiculturalism at the Ivy League univer–
sities. Its agenda is entirely different.
