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Faced with the pervasive traces of Western thought embodied in American life, some multiculturalists claim that this Eurocentric bias discriminates against those from different traditions. But for openers, Eurocentric is decidedly a fuzzy term, lumping together a vast diversity of nationalities and peoples, past and present. In what person or doctrine can Eurocentrism be embodied? Savonarola? Jane Austen? Deism? Communism? Insofar as it means anything specific, Eurocentric looks suspiciously like a code word for "white." In attempting to combat racism, radical multiculturalists seem all too willing to resort to racism of another stripe.
Furthermore, the oppressive effects of Western thought on nonwhites is not as clear-cut as most multiculturalists assume. Certainly, many past immigrants were encouraged to ape their "betters," as the parlance then called them -- to model their speech and demeanor on the dominant examples of white Anglo- Saxon Protestants, some of whom, in turn, were trying to imitate the British aristocracy. But this imperative belongs to the transient domains of fashion and snobbery, and in any case sycophancy is not unique to America or to Western societies. Harder to grasp is the way in which Western principles discriminate against the non-Western or nonwhite. Who or what is the villain here? Galileo? Einstein? The Magna Carta? The Bill of Rights? Was Martin Luther King Jr. diminished, made to feel inferior, when he read Henry David Thoreau along with Gandhi on civil disobedience? Or for that matter when he contemplated the Reformation launched by his 16th century German namesake?
Ultimately, multicultural thinking, for all its nods toward pluralism and diversity, can lead to several regressive orthodoxies. One is the notion that truth is forever encapsulated within collective identities, that what white males or females or blacks or Hispanics or Asians know about their experiences can be communicated only imperfectly to people beyond their pales. Those without the experience can never really know its essential features. The authority of any statement is locked within the skin of the speaker.
Afrocentrism, a cult within the multicultural movement, displays some distressing signs of authoritarianism. A series of "baseline" essays, commissioned by the Portland, Ore., school district as a reference for teachers and now in widespread use elsewhere, contains some sweeping assertions: "Black literature is manipulated and controlled by white editors and publishers." And: "Until the emergence of the doctrine of white superiority, Cleopatra was generally pictured as a distinctly African woman, dark in color." The claim that ancient Egypt, one of the cradles of Western civilization, was a black culture is a central tenet of Afrocentrism. Corroborating evidence is flimsy, but that is apparently not important. Writes John Henrik Clarke, professor emeritus of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at City University, New York: "African scholars are the final authority on Africa."