WHY RESPECT DIFFERENT CULTURES?: Cultural relativism vs. Universalism What is multiculturalism ? Do "we owe equal respect to all cultures"? Concern for Cultural Extinction (assimilation)?

The Liberal Paradox Liberals believe individuals are owed respect as citizens and as members of cultural communities - thus they endorse as legitimate state interference with objectionable "internal restrictions" that groups impose on their members, even as they argue that those same groups legitimately may demand "external protections" from outside groups.

WHY RESPECT CULTURE? 1.It's an Individual Right: 2. It is a good (commodity) with a value (asset) There is a value of cultural membership A value to the member A value to the group

How does culture work? structures the way people think about social life provides actors with information about how the world works. establishes order and predictability They foreclose possibilities, and this process is not naïve, it is strategic. Symbolic force discriminates-by calling attention to certain options, possibilities

The cultural debate mirrors (in some ways) the public/private debate But in the end, the women’s movement decided that the private is of public concern. Is Culture a Private Matter or a Public Concern?

Democracy and Multiculturalism –How do we reconcile the two –Individual rights v. group rights –How do we protect both? Bill of rights talks of individual rights What are the rights of groups Which groups should be protected –Unions –Religious groups –Class groups

RATIONAL CHOICE AND THE POLITICS OF CULTURE The coherence of a culture emerges from the efforts of strategic actors to resolve disorder and indeterminacy in ways that advantage themselves. Symbols and cultural practices are not self- animating.

Social and political actors engage in "symbolic action" when they deploy symbolic forms in the effort to impose some conceptual order on otherwise indeterminate process of social political interaction.

The claim that culture has an intrinsic strategic dimension in no way entails that we choose our culture. But they are not given - the variation in culture shows that. We want to be careful that “culture” is not masking “power differentials in the material world”

RATIONAL CHOICE CONCLUSION Seen from this perspective cultural practices are morally arbitrary: "cultural practices are generated and continually altered by strategic agents who seek to deploy symbolic force for their own advantage. Consequently, the shape or content of a cultural practice at any given time is a strategic artifact with no special moral status."

Does this mean that we cannot judge? NO: actually, this means that all cultural practices are contestable and indeed rebuttable. This challenge need not consist of condemnation, but it invites a response, an effort to justify, and implies that those who are challenged may convince critics that their concerns are misplaced.

Indeed, we do not directly respect either whole cultures or particular practices at all. We instead respect the social and political actors who endorse cultural practices. Rational choice stresses the need to reassess and revise their cultural attachments - to question elites that propose cultural norms.

The Policy Dimension of Race in the United States We've seen formal policies passed that target minorities in order to prevent them from integrating We've also seen recent policies that attempt to rectify past and current discrimination

Race can influence almost any policy arena: Foreign policy, Health Care, trade policy- globalization, we can probably find a connection. But LeMay identifies arguably the 6 most important or contentious policy issues What are they?

EDUCATION EMPLOYMENT HOUSING IMMIGRATION LAW ENFORCEMENT POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

Education What are the issues? segregation; equal quality; graduation rates What are the solutions? school busing; magnet schools; affirmative action; school choice

Employment What are the issues? Job discrimination; disparity in pay; occupational niches What are the solutions? Civil law suits; affirmative action; educational equality

Housing What are the issues? segregation; ghetoization; gentrification What are the solutions? fair housing act; make covenants illegal; change federal loan practices, tax and public housing policy; voucher system

Immigration What are the issues? Anti-immigrant sentiment; xenophobia; underground labor markets; burden on state & local services What are the solutions? Supply-side vs. Demand side policies; policies that discourage immigration; A wall; change constitutional definition of citizenship; criminalization; Amnesty

Law Enforcement What are the issues? profiling; high levels of incarceration and victimization What are the solutions? drug laws; better trained police; policy oversight; better education, job opportunities

Political Participation What are the issues? Barriers to turnout; racial gerrymandering; descriptive representation What are the solutions? Abolish poll tax/literacy tests; same-day registration; motor-voter; education; more descriptive representation