Angela D. Dillard - Guess Whos Coming to Dinner Now?: Multicultural Conservatism in America

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Guess Whos Coming to Dinner Now? Multicultural Conservatism in America Angela D. Dillard

Multicultural Conservatism in America

ANGELA D. DILLARD

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London

2001 by New York University
All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dillard, Angela D., 1965
Guess whos coming to dinner now? : multicultural conservatism
in America / Angela D. Dillard.
p. cm. (American history and culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8147-1939-2 (acid-free paper)
1. MinoritiesUnited StatesPolitical activity. 2. Conservatism
United States. 3. Pluralism (Social sciences)United States.
4. United StatesRace relationsPolitical aspects. 5. United
StatesEthnic relationsPolitical aspects. 6. Politcal culture
United States. 7. Group identityPolitical aspectsUnited States.
8. United StatesPolitics and government1989 9. United
StatesSocial conditions1980 I.Title. II.American history
and culture (New York University Press)
E184.A1 D46 2001
305.8'00973dc21 00-011346

New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

Ambrose Bierce, Devils Dictionary

A conservative Latino man, a black conservative woman, and a gay Christian conservative... this may sound like a set-up for an off-color joke, but members of such a diverse contingent could easily pass one another on Capitol Hill, gather for a roundtable discussion at a public policy think tank, or be seated together at a dinner gala sponsored by the Republican National Committee. Such occurrences happen frequently among the individuals I have labeled multi-cultural conservatives. I admit that even this tag began as something of a joke during a dinner party given by a close friend. I was regaling the company with stories and anecdotes uncovered while doing preliminary research for this book and was delighted by their confused and often horrified expressions. Seeking to get off another zinger at the expense of my erstwhile companions, I hit upon the idea of describing the existence of African American, Latino, homosexual, and women conservatives as multiculturala term generally reserved by common affirmation for leftists and liberals. This does not mean that women and minority conservatives embrace multiculturalism as an ethic and a philosophy. They do not. The phrase seemed, however, a perfect (if controversial) way to designate what they have brought to the postWorld War II conservative movement.

The other segment of this books title is derived, of course, from the 1967 film Guess Whos Coming to Dinner, starring Sidney Poitier. Poitiers character, John Prentice, is a distinguished and accomplished doctor specializing in the treatment of tropical diseases who falls in love with the young, white daughter of a crusading liberal newspaper publisher. Released in the same year as the Supreme Courts Loving decision, which barred states from prohibiting interracial marriages, the film chronicles the attempts by both families to accept the impending union. While notable for its depiction of interracial love and intimacy, Guess Whos Coming to Dinner nonetheless fails to address the dynamics of entrenched racial prejudice and foregrounds class (his prominence, her wealth) to make the possibility of marriage palatable. As the producer Stanley Kramer asserted, Dr. Prentices status was essential, since neither the woman nor her parents would have been interested in a garage attendant. Hence, the standards it erects for peaceful integration and interracial marriage are deep and wide. Such standards also reflect, at least in part, the positions currently adopted by those women and minority conservatives who believe in the redemptive possibilities of assimilation, individualism, and charactera topic to which I devote a good deal of attention in the following pages.

Having settled on a playful but hopefully thought-provoking title, as I began to write this book I was immediately confronted with the problem of definition. Exactly what, after all, is a conservative in the context of a nation that lacks the basic ingredients of an organic conservative tradition? As Louis Hartz insisted, there is only one definitive political tradition in the United States, and it is decidedly liberal. In his seminal analysis of the connections between social structure and ideology, Hartz maintained that the absence of a feudal heritage and an anti-industrial Right led naturally to the triumph of bourgeois Lockean liberalism that equated the acquisition of private property with the pursuit of happiness. Without a landed aristocracy to overthrow or a landless mob to silence, liberalism reigned supreme and formed the foundation of American political culture.conservatism is rooted not so much in distinct social and economic structures of the nation as in the realm of ideas.

In his introduction to The Portable Conservative Reader, Kirk ventures a basic outline of six foundational principles. The first principle is a belief in a transcendent moral order, be it God or natural law, through which we ought to try and conform the ways of society; the second, closely related, is the principle of social continuity, that is, the vision of the body social as a kind of spiritual corporation. Third is the principle of prescription, or the willingness to cherish the wisdom of our ancestors. The individual is foolish, as Edmund Burke once famously asserted, but the species is wise. Prudence is the fourth guiding principle of conservatism. It encourages the consideration of the probable, long-term consequences that lurk behind any public measure. Thus are conservatives ever on guard against the doctrine of unintended consequences.

Variety comes in fifth on Kirks list. As distinguished from the artificial egalitarianism of radical systems, variety seeks the preservation of a healthy diversity by accepting the necessity of orders and classes, differences in material conditions, and many sorts of inequalities. And, last but not least, there is imperfectability: the knowledge that human nature suffers from certain innate faults. These deep flaws in our nature ensure that the radical dream of a perfectly just and completely equal social order is hopelessly utopian and doomed to failure. All that we reasonably can expect, Kirk summarizes, is a tolerably ordered, just, and free society, in which some evils, maladjustments, and suffering continue to lurk. Which is all well and fine as long as you are not the long-suffering party.