Dear Editor,
In ‘America is an immigrant society but is not tribalized’ (SN, Dec 17), Mr Mike Persaud makes statements that are not factual. In addition, he incorrectly paraphrases my arguments making suppositions, conjectures and assumptions that are not supported by facts or theories in academic literature on ethnicity. A lengthy piece I penned in response on the subject of ethnicity that provides clarifications on issues was not published.
Mr Persaud contends that ethnic conflict in other societies has no relevance to Guyana. If that were the case, why would the UN commission studies on ethnic conflict and why would so many scholars study the paradigm? Policymakers and scholars are seeking solutions to ethnic conflict and theorize whether solutions to conflict in one society can be applied to another. Hence the comparison.
Mr Persaud claims the New York Times (NYT) labels the Bharatya Janata Party in India as “fundamentalist”. That is not correct. The latest article on the BJP in NYT (Dec 8) describes the BJP as “… a pro-business, Hindu nationalist party.” This is different from being “fundamentalist.” The BJP is not advocating that India be governed by Hindu religious scriptures.
Mr Persaud argues that people don’t vote according to ethnicity in America and instead are influenced by class and cultural interests with the poor voting Democrat and the wealthy voting Republican. How then does he explain wealthy Blacks, including prominent members of the Republican Party, voting Democrat in 2008 and 2012? How does he explain poor Southern Whites consistently voting Republican. Obama gave poor Whites medical care. Yet they are still opposed to him, according to surveys published in the NYT. Mr Persaud should read a recent piece in the NYT on ethnic voting and his description of the Republicans as a white Christian party. The NYT carried articles showing how some Southern Whites, poorer than some Blacks, voted against Obama when it was Obama and the Democrats who championed their interests. How does Mr Persaud explain this anomaly?
Mr Persaud challenges me to provide a list of literature on ethnicity and voting in America. It is too large. There are literally millions of references in the literature on ethnicity. One can also google the subject and find an infinite number of articles on the subject documenting how Americans vote ethnically. In addition, the LA Times, NYT, Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report, Economist, etc, have carried analyses of ethnic voting in America after every election.
One of the foremost publications on the subject is the Journal of Race and Ethnicity in American Politics published by the American Political Science Association. There is also Jennifer Hochschild’s American Racial and Ethnic Politics in the 21st century. There are other prominent works by Gunnar Myrdal, Stanley Cox, the distinguished Black scholar Marable Manning, among others on American ethnicity. The Brookings Institute has some excellent studies on ethnic voting. There is Valerie Martinez-Ebers Perspectives on Race, Ethnicity, and Religion: Identity Politics in America, Rodolfo O de la Garza’s Ethnic Ironies that analyzes Latino politics in America. There is the Journal of Political Commentary that has carried numerous studies on ethnic and racial politics in America as well as on ethnic divisions and conflict.
There are published volumes analysing every national election for the last 60 years examining voting patterns among ethnic, gender and income groups. The Washington Post in 2012 published an article titled ‘The Deepest Racial Split in America’ regarding the election. Analyses of the 2008 and 2012 elections (as published in the NYT and Post) showed a majority of Whites voted Republican while the majority of non-Whites voted Democrat. The NYT and Post also had geographical and ethnic voting for both elections.
Can Mr Persaud explain why Hispanics don’t vote for Blacks in the Bronx and vice-versa or why Blacks and Jews have distinct local seats in Brooklyn and why certain seats in Queens are unofficially labelled as Jewish or Irish or Italian? If there is no ethnic voting, why then did the groups lobby for ethnic seats to Congress, City Council and the NY State legislature? Asians sought an increase of two City Council seats (one more in Brooklyn and Queens) in redistricting earlier but did not get them. I was with a group that sought a seat for South Asians (Indo-Caribbeans) in greater Richmond Hill for the City Council and the Assembly (Senate) and Congress but got none, with Helen Marshall saying she fought for the Council seat for African Americans two decades ago and they should not give it up.
Just going by his simplistic reading of American ethnic politics, Mr Persaud misreads ethnic voting in Guyana and the social-psychology of ethnic identity, and it is for this reason he believes merely appointing someone from another ethnic group to lead an ethnic party will end conflict in Guyana. Ethnic tokenism was tried since the 1950s and has failed in Guyana.
No one disagrees with Ambassador Brent Hardt’s (or President Carter’s) appeal for inclusive governance. Every Ambassador and the UN Interlocutor made the same appeal that fell on deaf ears. The issue is how do we resolve ethnic conflict.
Ethnicity is a complex issue that has defied solution for millennia. Virtually no society has resolved its ethnic conflict although some (in the developed world in particular) have managed ethnic crisis better than others. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, etc, grappled with the intractable problem and failed to find a solution. Ethnic tokenism cannot be a solution.
We need a permanent institutionalized solution that respects the distinctiveness of the groups and grants them equitable participation in governance and the distribution of resources.
Theoretical constructs must be evidence based or else they become what Prof Stanley Aronowitz calls “kaka or looney talk.” My pointing out facts and presenting supporting data to reject Mr Persaud’s proposal does not mean I support ethnic politics. Academia does not operate that way. The purpose of queries is to make a theory or model better.
Mr Persaud’s conclusion that the PPP and PNC’s “ethnic pretensions” are much preferred over my rejection of tokenism is hypocrisy. He needs to rethink his tokenism position in the light of overwhelming evidence stacked against it.
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram
