Multiculturalism is a grave threat to this country. Multiculturalism is a threat to education: instead of encouraging students to question their assumptions and the assumptions of their parents and society, multiculturalism demands that students accept blindly what they're given. Instead of encouraging reason and independent judgment, multiculturalism demands obedience to authority: the authority of the ethnic group

Racism is the most challenging issue confronting America. A nation whose ancestry includes every people on earth, whose motto is E pluribus unum, whose ideals of freedom under law have inspired millions throughout the world, cannot continue to harbor prejudice against any racial or ethnic group without betraying itself. Racis

10. European Americans often don't recognize or acknowledge racism until there is a crisis. Further, they often expect (or wait for) people of color to teach them about racism.

The government report attributed the endurance of racism in the United States to causes that include:

--Practices that maintain segregation in housing despite laws that prohibit it.

For several years now, we have been dreaming (through the strategic planning process), about who we wish to become. As important as it may be, our goal of Growth Through Diversity will not be achieved by simply wishing or dreaming it, or by passive action. It's been nearly 100 years since DuBois said that the problem of the 20th century would be the "color line." Derrick Bell argues that racism is a permanent condition of this country. a part of our cultural landscape - unless and until people of European heritage organize to eliminate it. I cannot envision growing through diversity without addressing racism. Here's why:

Racism is a specific form of discrimination usually associated with skin colour and ethnicity. It is an ideology of superiority which provides a rationalisation for oppression. It also involves an abuse of power by one group over another group. So, while racism involves negative stereotypes and assumptions it should not be reduced simply to attitudes thereby equating it with prejudice, as pointed out earlier in this paper. The reality of unequal power combined with prejudice enables some groups to treat others in racist ways by denying them access to opportunities, resources and decision-making processes.

The moral, psychological and cultural approaches tend to depoliticise the issue of racism by focusing almost exclusively on individual attitudes and behaviours dislocated from their social, political, economical, and historical contexts. Solutions based on the moral approach rightly draw attention to the reality that racism is a moral issue even though the treatment of Travellers is rarely presented in this way. If the Churches, for instance, speak out on Traveller issues they tend to focus on prejudice rather than racism, thereby over-relying on attitudinal change. The psychological approach, as Kovel argues, is by no means a sufficient tool for understanding the phenomenon of racism; it is, however, a necessary one:

The designation of 1997 as European Year Against Racism has highlighted the need to take the issue of racism more seriously and to combat racism in a more concerted way throughout the European Union. The establishment of a Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia in Vienna will enable Member States to collect and collate data for anti-racist actions. Likewise support by the European Commission for the setting up of a European-level mechanism for coordinating the work of anti-racist NGO's will build on the momentum of the year.

Kovel shows how various fantasies and personality traits can coalesce into 'race' prejudice and how this sheds light on the history of racism:

That racist feelings are gaining strength in America is evidenced by the increasing political influence of the Far Right, whose thinly disguised racism reflects the darkening vision of a growing segment of the conservative community. Further evidence can be seen in the growth of ultraconservative extremist groups preaching avowedly racist philosophies, such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations, the White Aryan Resistance, and others [see James Ridgeway, Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, Nazi Skinheads, and the Rise of a New White Culture, Thunder's Mouth Press, 1990]. Thus, American Politicians and organisers such as Pat Buchanan, David Duke, and Ralph Metzger have been able to exploit the budding racism of lower- and middle-class white youths, who must compete for increasingly scarce jobs with desperate minorities who are willing to work at very low wages. The expanding popularity of such racist groups in the US is matched by a simila

Some common words found in the essay are:
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