Robinson strikes again

Eugene Robinson reconfirms his status as the Washington Post's least incisive columnist with today's piece on France and multiculturalism:

The riots in the suburbs of Paris and other French cities ought to wipe the smirk from the lips of even multiculturalism's smuggest critics. Those who lobby against bilingual education or get upset when their children learn about Cinco de Mayo should look at France and realize that multiculturalism is a lot like democracy -- it's the worst system except for all the others.

People who lobbied against bilingual education did so because it wasn't working. Children were not learning -- prompting some California school districts to repeal it. The result:

Two years after Californians voted to end bilingual education and force a million Spanish-speaking students to immerse themselves in English as if it were a cold bath, those students are improving in reading and other subjects at often striking rates, according to standardized test scores released this week.

Many educators had predicted catastrophe if bilingual classes were dismantled in this state, which is home to one of every 10 of the nation's public school children, many of them native Spanish speakers. But the prophecies have not materialized.

As for the second bit, I remember learning about Cinco de Mayo when I went to elementary school in California. Even as a third-grader I thought it was ridiculous that I was learning about a holiday that commemorates a famous Mexican battle. I wasn't that smart, but I knew that Mexico was a completely different country and figured we should stick to more important things such as US history and eating glue.
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Now, did learning about Mexican holidays promote greater understanding among the school's population? Not that I can recall. If anything it helped accentuate differences. It was also at that same elementary school that I encountered the word "honky" for the first time, although it took me a number of years later before I figured out that it had a racial connotation.

Anyway, I think when it comes to promoting unity that Niall Ferguson gets it right:

Not so long ago I was at a junior school in Texas, not far from the Mexican border. The day began with the entire class singing a ditty that went: "I am proud to be an American, be an American, be an American/ I am proud to be an American, living in the USA - OK!" Deeply corny, no doubt. But these little kids sang it with real gusto. Every single one of them was of Mexican origin.

After blithering on some more Robinson offers up this nugget:

The failed French experiment proves that you can't make differences and disparities disappear simply by ignoring them. Other countries have tried that approach and likewise have failed. When I covered Brazil in the late 1980s, I was struck by how residents of the violent, desperate shantytowns were mostly black and the powerful people who ran the society were almost all white -- yet people insisted there was no racism. Now, belatedly, Brazil is beginning to try to redress more than a century of unacknowledged discrimination.

Honestly Eugene, do you think all of the sensitivity training in the world would do the poor in Brazil much good? Well, maybe racism is to blame. Or maybe, just maybe, it has far more to do with the fact that Brazil is corrupt, has poorly defined property rights and is ranked an abysmal 90th by the Heritage Foundation in its ranking of economic freedom.

Robinson concludes:

People of different races, backgrounds, cultures, histories and languages can indeed live together productively and with common purpose. I know that because we do it here in the United States. It's a messy process, because it means we have to argue a lot, and many of us resent all the constant conflict and negotiation that's involved in getting along with one another. But we manage quite well, especially if you compare our society to those, like France, that cover their ears and go "na-na-na-na-na" to avoid hearing complicated truths.

So let's end all this "English-first" nonsense and embrace Spanish as our second language, since that's what it is. Let's learn more about those 5,000 years of Chinese history. Let's have the dates of Ramadan and Eid noted on our calendars. Let's remind ourselves of a big, important lesson that we've already learned, and that we can teach the world: Multiculturalism works.

What's amazing is that while lots of other people have noted how the rioters in France have little economic opportunity, this is left completely unaddressed by Robinson. Nor does he mention the creation of public housing by the government that have become de facto ghettos. Or the lack of a police presence. But who knows, maybe all France really needs is Arab History Month.