By Steven J. Grisafi, PhD.
The word Balkanization carries with it negative connotations so one would not expect to read an argument in favor of the process. I argue that the laws are harsh in the United States, yet the crime rate, and the incarceration rate, remain persistently higher than in other western civilization societies. If I were to have given this essay the title “Blame Lincoln”, that would most likely have been interpreted as sarcasm. No sarcasm is intended. Although one would expect that economists would argue that it is wealth inequality which lay as root cause of America”s dysfunctional society, I cannot accept this argument. The poor in America are multicultural. No one culture, creed, ethnicity, nor race has a monopoly on poverty. Rather, I argue that it is multiculturalism itself that destroys the national sense of commonwealth and community, which leads to the dysfunction of our society.
I remember an occasion in which the actress Téa Leoni announced to news media that she is of Polish and Italian ancestry, so that she “has heard all of the jokes.” Recently, former presidential candidate and consumer activist, Ralph Nader, voiced his opinion that the alleged bitterness he and other American elites perceive as the motivation that drives certain people to support the candidacy of Donald Trump for president, is that such people feel deprived that they can no longer tell their improper jokes anymore. Ralph Nader is of Lebanese ancestry. He is an Arab. Yet, no one would perceive him as being “non-white.” The reality is that he is Caucasian. It is because he is Christian, and not Muslim, that his being an Arab does not lead Americans to perceive him as being non-white. Only Arabs that are Muslim are mistaken to be non-white by Christian Americans. When I was a graduate student at Yale University I had a conversation with a recently hired Assistant Professor who was born and educated in India. He explained to me that when India was a British colony the British considered anyone with dark skin as non-white. Indians, as well as Pakistanis, are no less Caucasian than Italians, Poles, or even the British. An equally long time ago, as to when I was a graduate student, I remember hearing a Black American woman on television assert that non-whites were the majority in the world. Such confusion most likely results as another legacy of colonialism. Myself being an Italian-American, I am very sensitive to the misunderstanding that there were no Black people indigenous to either Europe, Asia, Australia, North or South America, but only to Sub-Saharan Africa. North Africans, being primarily Arabs, and that includes Egyptians, are Caucasians.
Italian-Americans comprise approximately ten per cent of the American people. Black Americans comprise approximately eleven percent. They are neither under-represented in our government nor our professions. There has never been an American president of Italian ancestry. Americans of German ancestry comprise the largest population group in America. There has been only one president of German ancestry, Dwight David Eisenhower. One can argue that German-Americans are severely under-represented in the United States. When taken together as a single group, Hispanic Americans are more numerous than German-American. But just as White Americans cannot be taken as a homogeneous group, neither can the various peoples described as Hispanic. As an Italian-American, I cannot understand the reluctance of those who assert that they are “Latino”, but do not claim that they are Spanish-Americans. I suppose that it is the bond that they feel towards the various former Spanish colonies, such as Mexico and Cuba, that drives their identification as Latino and not as Spanish-American. But then this alone should cause everyone to recognize that “Hispanics” cannot be taken as a homogeneous group within the United States.
So how is President Lincoln to be blamed for this multiculturalism within the United States? He isn”t. He is to be blamed for the notion that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” We consider the eloquence of his Gettysburg Address as evidence of his competency for the presidency of the United States. Yet, we also marvel at the writings of Shakespeare not realizing that his dialogue reflected English speech as it was spoken in his time. Late President Nixon, who was born in 1913, wrote how his family used archaic speech employing such words as “thee” and “thou” because his family were Quakers. President Lincoln was primarily self-educated. He had not foreseen the difficulties of his intentions that his predecessor President Buchanan recognized. Lincoln”s determination to preserve the Union is, in my opinion, the primary reason for our nation”s failure to heal properly the wounds the nation suffered from slavery. Lincoln ought to have let the Confederacy secede and then work with other nations to embargo it. A proper use of international diplomacy could have applied sufficient pressure to the Confederacy such that it would abandon slavery as its best economic alternative. That, and the boll weevil, would have worked together to compel the Southern States to diversify their economy and abandon the slave labor model of agriculture. Had Lincoln allowed the Confederacy to secede the entire course of history of the United States would have been changed; indeed perhaps even the course of world history. The Union, as it would have remained after the secession, would be free of the legacy of Jim Crow and the Carpetbaggers. The wounds of slavery would have had a better chance to heal.
That they have not healed is evident today. America is not geographically Balkanized, but demographically Balkanized. It is better to be divided geographically than demographically. Six days ago the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ruled that Black men may have a legitimate reason to flee the police. This is an untenable situation. One cannot have a legitimate reason to flee the monopoly power of the State. Such a right cannot be afforded exclusively to a select division of the people. The authority of the State has been undermined and so it is time to divide the State. Division could be achieved geographically by dividing the nation into large provinces or regions. All could then be united within an economic and military alliance. While this may seem like an extraordinary measure to be undertaken, our circumstances are no less extraordinary.