{"id":2230645,"date":"2024-04-26T03:18:02","date_gmt":"2024-04-26T07:18:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/going-color-blind-could-help-americans-see-what-truly-unites-them\/"},"modified":"2024-04-26T03:21:35","modified_gmt":"2024-04-26T07:21:35","slug":"going-color-blind-could-help-americans-see-what-truly-unites-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/going-color-blind-could-help-americans-see-what-truly-unites-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Becoming Color-Blind: Uniting Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">8<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgoing-color-blind-could-help-americans-see-what-truly-unites-them%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2230645&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The text\u2064 discusses Benedict \u200cAnderson&#8217;s concept of\u2063 &#8220;imagined communities&#8221; and \u200bexplores how individuals in the early\u2062 modern era formed\u200c a sense of belonging beyond their immediate\u200c surroundings. It delves\u2064 into the idea \u2063that\u2064 communities \u200care partly fantastical \u2064and emphasizes the role of will in shaping\u200c national identities,\u2063 as seen in contemporary American discourse and Andre \u200dArchie&#8217;s \u2064advocacy for color-blindness.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>In his 1983 magnum opus, Irish historian Benedict Anderson famously coined the term \u201cimagined communities\u201d \u2014 the notion of which involves how people in the early modern period imagined themselves as part of a community that transcended their immediate social relationships. For example, in order for the nation of Italy to exist, an Italian had to imagine something bigger than his local neighborhood in Rome. <\/p>\n<p>The idea of imagined communities also belies the fact that a community, at least on one level, has a fantastic character that exists more in the minds of the inhabitants of a community than in reality. In other words, one person\u2019s idea of what it means to be an American southerner might have little to do with the history of the South or its present reality. <\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2-long d-flex justify-content-center\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-860897845\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1379703300879-0\" class=\"mb-30\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-dc03566e1c61dd6dca26dc89f0899efb fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-dc03566e1c61dd6dca26dc89f0899efb\"><\/div>\n<p>Finally, an \u201cimagined community\u201d also involves the will. One must <em>will<\/em> to believe France is the quintessentially secular republic, and one must enforce that will through propaganda, art, education, etc. These reasons are why, while there are real social and cultural bounds among people, national identity is something variable. <\/p>\n<p>Within contemporary American discourse on the political left, there is a strong and aggressive imaginative vision of the United States. This view \u2014 especially popular among critical race theorists \u2014 is that America is fundamentally structurally racist. America was, in this view, founded upon slavery and was created to maintain a master-slave relationship between whites and nonwhites who were merely in the country to work and be oppressed. In his recent work, <em>The Virtue of Color-Blindness<\/em>, Andre Archie, associate professor of ancient Greek philosophy at Colorado State University, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/author-pushes-back-on-critical-race-theory-in-californias-school-system\/\" title=\"Author challenges Critical Race Theory in California schools.\">challenges critical race theory<\/a> (CRT), arguing for a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/girl-scouts-push-anti-racism-guide-that-claims-color-blindness-perpetuates-racism\/\" title=\"Girl Scouts Push \u2018Anti-Racism\u2019 Guide That Claims Color-Blindness \u2018Perpetuates Racism\u2019\">color-blind approach<\/a> to American identity. <\/p>\n<p>Archie provides a unique perspective on the question of CRT. Archie is a black American from Denver who is proud of both his frontier roots and American identity. Moreover, Archie is steeped in the Western tradition and is a specialist in Greek philosophy. Archie sees the Western tradition as a common heritage for all Americans. He writes in his chapter \u201cPotatoes\u201d of his experience growing up in a working-class family in Colorado in the 1970s and \u201980s. He notes that, although his family experienced periods of poverty, he was not taught racial animosity as a boy. Instead, he was taught personal agency and was drawn to black conservative figures like Ken Hamblin and Bill Hervey as he grew up. <\/p>\n<p>Archie was attracted to Hamblin\u2019s emphasis on how a significant portion of the black American community did not agree with either white liberals or black nationalists but were shamed into silence. Archie further studied under Professor Bill Hervey (a Cornell Straussian and student of Allan Bloom) at Colorado State University, learning the treasures of Greek philosophy and the Western tradition as the inheritance of all Americans regardless of race. Archie, however, has seen this shared tradition attacked by critical race theorists. <\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-9122a8756435746d0cd3c376e9405f67 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-6\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-9122a8756435746d0cd3c376e9405f67\"><\/div>\n<p>Archie makes the important comment that those black Americans who despise America are engaging in what Roger Scruton refers to as \u201coikophobia,\u201d or hatred of one\u2019s home. Black nationalists (like white nationalists) often shape imagined identities of themselves rooted in misreadings of African, European, and Islamic history. Whether changing their names or dressing like Arabs or Egyptians, some black nationalists make every effort to distance themselves from the America in which they were born and in which their ancestors lived for hundreds of years. <\/p>\n<p>Archie notes that, outside of Anglo-Saxon settlers, black Americans have lived in America longer than most European ethnic groups. A historic black American born in Louisiana is a Louisianan and, in Archie\u2019s view, should embrace that Louisianan identity. While it is true that black Americans have experienced alienation from American culture due to genuine instances of racism and exclusion, according to Archie, they sometimes also choose to engage in self-alienation. <\/p>\n<p>The best chapter in <em>The Virtue of Color-Blindness<\/em> is \u201cIdentity, Nationalism, and Race.\u201d In this chapter, Archie notes that he is not arguing for a complete abolition of ethnic identity (Archie himself admits he is very proud of the black American tradition of jazz music). He does, however, argue for Americans to see their American identity as primary. The author argues that Martin Luther King Jr. appealed to this shared American identity in his \u201cLetter from A Birmingham Jail,\u201d in which he appealed to a shared Western tradition rooted in Greek philosophy \u2014 one of which both black and white Americans are a part. <\/p>\n<p>According to Archie, the common American culture should be paired with \u201ccreedalism,\u201d or a uniting belief in shared American ideas. Creedalism on its own cannot adequately combat aggressive identity politics. Humans crave culture and identity. Archie draws from Francis Fukuyama\u2019s 2018 book, <em>Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment<\/em>, in which Fukuyama argues for the strength of national community instead of groupings of often conflicting \u201cnarrow\u201d identities. Fukuyama further postulates that humans need identity and are not solely driven by material wants and needs. Drawing from Plato\u2019s <em>Republic<\/em>, Fukuyama states that humans need <em>thymos<\/em> or a \u201cpositive judgment about their worth and dignity.\u201d If citizens are not given a strong national identity, they will embrace radicalized identity politics.  <\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-aece51867ca28b0c2e4f5d2b4310f65f fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-10\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-aece51867ca28b0c2e4f5d2b4310f65f\"><\/div>\n<p>Some conservative readers may not agree with everything Archie says, potentially taking specific issue with his entirely color-blind approach, which places too little emphasis on the rich diversity of human ethnicities and cultures. However, it is interesting to ponder what a 21st-century <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pushing-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-in-the-u-s-military-endangers-national-security\/\" title=\"Pushing Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion In The U.S. Military Endangers National Security\">color-blind society<\/a> would look like. <\/p>\n<p>Much of the contemporary world is plagued with the disconcerting idea that there is \u201cno future.\u201d Those who have grown up in the 21st century cannot imagine a future, while those who grew up in the later 20th century have had their dreams shattered. A post-racial, post-DEI future would potentially unleash the tremendous creative power that propelled the \u201cAmerican Century.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>If K-12 education focused on training and preparing citizens of the United States for excellence in the workforce while promoting the best, highest achieving students to college, we would potentially experience a sea-change in American industry and technology. Moreover, a renewed national identity would ease the constant frenetic political and ethnic tension that many Americans experience daily. <\/p>\n<p>A color-blind society may or may not be possible, but a renewal of American unity and American excellence is deeply needed. <\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-a7755a385bdaeaf6a6a43c0ac3460cfc fdrlst__b89e9-after-post-content\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-a7755a385bdaeaf6a6a43c0ac3460cfc\"><\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\">    \t\t\t\t\t   \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In his 1983 masterpiece, Irish historian Benedict Anderson popularized the concept of &#8220;imagined communities.&#8221; This idea explores how individuals in the early modern era viewed themselves as part of a community beyond their immediate social circles. For instance, the existence of Italy as a nation required Italians to envision themselves as such<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1719,"featured_media":2230646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Book-Cover-Featured-Image-10.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2230645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Book-Cover-Featured-Image-10.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2230645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1719"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2230645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2230645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2230646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2230645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2230645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2230645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}