After World War II, ethnic issues (especially the discrimination against African descent) once became one of the major social issues in the United States. In that era, there were not only peace fighters represented by Martin Luther King, who wanted to fight for equal rights by awakening the consciousness of more people; but also activists represented by Malcolm X. Attempts to "use violence against violence" set off a magnificent affirmative struggle in the United States.
Today, although the situation of African Americans and other minorities in the United States has improved compared with the past, racial discrimination as a historical, systemic, and structural illness has not been eradicated.
Even if U.S. President Biden emphasized ethnic diversity when selecting cabinet members, this kind of conscious affirmative action in the elite class cannot conceal ethnic conflicts at the social level. Under the impact of the new crown epidemic and changes in the demographic structure, some ethnic conflicts have been picked out of the fig leaf and surfaced again.
Systemic ills of national development
The United States has always been called an "immigrant country", and immigrants give it unique attributes. On the one hand, a large number of immigrants have brought human resources and advanced technology to the United States, and immigrants from different countries have also collided with rich and diverse cultures and arts. On the other hand, due to the different subjects of immigrants who came to this continent in different historical periods, this history of immigration is also a history of ethnic assimilation and conflict.
American sociologist Milton Gordon published the book "Assimilation in American Life" in 1964, which roughly divided the development of American ethnic relations into three stages.
The first stage was from the beginning of the British immigration to North America until the beginning of the 20th century. The cultural background of the main immigrant group is Anglo-Saxon, so other immigrants pay more attention to strengthening the Anglo-Saxon culture. The formula is "A+B+C+......=A", which means that to become "Americans" you must adhere to Anglo. -Mainstream Saxon culture.
The second stage is from the early 20th century to the 1950s and 1960s. Affected by the First World War, a large number of European immigrants poured into the United States. The "melting pot" theory gradually emerged. The formula is "A+B+C+......=E", which means that the American cultural background is no longer limited to Anglo-Saxon culture. , But trying to be inclusive and integrate the cultures represented by different immigrants.
The third stage is after the 1950s and 1960s. Americans found that while ethnic groups were fused to a certain extent, the differences of the original ethnic groups were stubbornly maintained. The "melting pot" became a "salad platter", which can be summed up by the formula as "A+B+C+……=EA+ EB+EC+……” means that the identity has become an “American” who retains the original cultural traditions of each ethnic group.
The issue of ethnicity has run through almost the entire history of the United States, and it is also a process of constantly exploring the identity of "Americans". Whether it was the slaughter of Native Indians by North American colonists, the oppression of black slaves by whites, or the Chinese Exclusion Act that banned Chinese from becoming American citizens, they all reflected the contradictions and conflicts between American ethnic groups. This is the price paid by the United States as a country of immigrants, and it is also the root cause and systemic ills that are difficult to resolve in the development of the United States.
Wrong policies exacerbate discrimination
At the moment, the ethnic conflicts in the United States do not stop. Whether it is the Charlottesville riots during Trump's tenure or the hatred case against Asians during Biden's tenure, it proves that American society is still plagued by antagonisms between different ethnic groups.
"Everyone is equal before the virus." This sentence originally meant that anyone is vulnerable to the new crown virus, but there are obvious differences between different ethnic groups in the United States. This difference is not because each ethnic group has different physiological characteristics, but because of the differences in the living conditions of different ethnic groups and the wrong policies of the US government, ethnic differentiation has finally become the vulnerability of different levels in the face of the epidemic.
According to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as of July 16, 2021, the number of deaths of African Americans and Hispanics and whites due to the new crown virus in the United States is disproportionate. The proportion of African Americans is twice that of whites, and the proportion of Hispanics is white. 2.3 times. In terms of vaccination, although the proportion of African Americans and whites who refused to vaccinate themselves accounted for the same proportion of the total number of ethnic groups, the actual vaccination rate of African Americans was much lower than that of whites.
The new crown epidemic has exposed systemic racial discrimination in the United States to the world in an extremely sad way, including the gap between the rich and the poor, targeted violence by the police, and inequality in the medical system.
In the history of the United States, contagious diseases have been attributed to specific ethnic groups many times. For example, some people called cholera the "Irish disease" and blamed the spread of tuberculosis on the Jews. Many more people did not know the "Spanish flu". In fact, it did not originate in Spain.
This time, the new crown epidemic has pushed up racism and xenophobia in the United States. The US government has not learned from history. The politicized manipulation of the source of the new crown virus has directly increased discrimination and even crimes against Asians.
According to a study by California State University San Bernardino, compared with the first quarter of 2020, the number of hate crime incidents against Asian Americans in 15 major cities in the United States increased by 169% in the first quarter of 2021. Among them, the growth rate of New York City was as high as 223%, the city of San Francisco increased by 145%, the city of Los Angeles increased by 80%, and the city of Boston increased by 60%.
U.S. politicians have unscrupulously made erroneous remarks that cause racial discrimination, making the goal of ethnic unity and fighting systemic racism even more remote.
"who are we?"
Even if the epidemic subsides, ethnic conflicts in the United States will hardly disappear. The demographic structure of the United States is gradually undergoing major changes, and whether the identity of "Americans" can transcend ethnic boundaries will become a huge challenge.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s statistics on the U.S. population in 2020, non-Hispanic whites currently account for 58% of the U.S. population, lower than the previously estimated 60%, and these people are no longer in 400 of the 3,100 counties in the U.S. Majority ethnicity. This trend made non-Hispanic whites anxious, and this anxiety was also one of the important factors that promoted Trump's election as president in 2016.
However, no matter who is in power, it seems difficult to answer the question asked by American political scientist Samuel Huntington: Who are we? The answer to this question is not only about the future of American ethnic equality and the prospect of dealing with internal conflicts, but also about the country's identity, national interests, and how the United States will interact with the world.