New Ethnicity & Blue Collars

Cultural Pluralism in the Working Class

It is a truism among liberal academics that we have a lot to learn from the blacks, a truism I fully concede. Yet, does any liberal academic believe in his heart that we have much to learn from the Poles or the Italians?

I have asked this question in order to suggest that racism in the United States is but a manifestation of a much wider bigotry. And I would submit that this larger bigotry can be found precisely among those so ready to confess their guilt over racism and to insist that the rest of us confess too. Bigotry against those who are “different” may well be less intense in the United States than in any other large nation, but it’s still here...