American Nationalism vs Separatism
The word “nationalism” has become associated with racism, bigotry, and intolerance. Meanwhile, advocates of identity politics paint a picture of separatism where groups live in harmony sharing power, wealth, and respecting one another's differences. But history teaches something very different.
Separatism always leads to violence, bigotry, and civil unrest. At its worse, it leads to enslavement, genocide, and civil war. By definition it does not attempt to meld groups together, but instead promotes separate identities. Rather than “sharing power, wealth, and respecting one another”, the reality is each identity group is constantly competing to gain greater power, wealth, and dominance.
Terms like “white nationalism” or Christian nationalism are actually forms of separatism since by definition they are labels meant to exclude groups. Instead, our schools should be teaching American nationalism. What would such an ideology promote? And why is American nationalism important?
What would American nationalism promote?
American nationalism would be based on America’s core values embodied in our founding documents as amended over the centuries. Rather than nationalism grounded race, religion, ethnicity, traditions, or culture, American would be grounded in values.
First and foremost, it would teach that every human being is created equal and has unalienable rights including life, liberty, and the right to pursue happiness (the term “happiness” can be hard to define, so perhaps it is better to say, each individual can pursue what they determine to be their purpose). The constraints to these unalienable rights arise only when they begin to infringe on the rights of others.
A second set of core values are those contained within the constitution. The Constitution defines rights that every adult citizen has. To be an American, means to embrace those rights. Whether that right is the freedom of speech, the press, the right to own a gun, the right to protest, the right to practice your religion, etc. American nationalism depends on we as people embracing those rights as individual rights and only when someone uses their right to infringe on the rights of others (like abusing the right to own a gun or yelling fire in a crowded theater, etc) are your individual rights subject to being limited.
A third core value for American nationalism is integration. Integration is the opposite of separatism. While it starts with every human having the same rights, it evolves into protecting citizens from discrimination. But protecting people from discrimination is only the first second step. Integration means as a society rather than evolving as separate identity groups, we evolve as an integrated society… our workplace, schools, places of worship, etc. reflect the fact that our society is one where discrimination of any kind is frowned upon. Overtime, this integration will lead to biological integration, mixed race couples will produce mixed race children. America’s culture and traditions will become a melting pot of the cultures and traditions of the immigrants that have made America along with our own national experiences.
The ultimate goal is a society in which tolerance for differences exists in order to attract immigrants to our country. But children born or raised in this country will be taught the ideology of American nationalism and integration. Love your traditions, love your ancestors’ culture, but embrace the values of your citizenship. The more integrated our society becomes the more likely MLK’s vision of America of a nation where people are judged based on their character will occur. That dream can never be a reality where people are judged based on which identity group they belong to.
Some will argue that I am advocating cultural genocide by promoting integration. Living in a mixed-race family with members coming from Africa, Asia, America, Europe, and Carribean, it is clear to me that American culture is not “white culture”. It does not resemble the culture of the predominantly white European countries. Instead, American culture has been shaped by our experiences and the experiences of every cultural group that has come to America. Our culture will continue to evolve and that is a wonderful thing, but what should not change are the core values that define American nationalism. The idea that we have unalienable rights as humans, that we have individual citizen rights, and that we are constantly moving towards an integrated society even as people continue to join us through the process of immigration.
The most dangerous threat to American democracy is separatism. It is not Trump or Biden, but the idea that an elite group of Americans should determine the direction of America, rather than a nation being guided by its citizens sharing a common set of core values.
One can be proud of their “heritage”, “their gender identity”, their religion, and other values and beliefs that define them and still be American. However, when someone rejects integration as a societal value, the core values of our Constitution, or the human rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence, one is beginning to leave behind what defines them as American. There is an enormous amount of room to reconcile those core American values with one’s individual beliefs, and perhaps that is what our schools should focus on rather than teaching a specific ideology inconsistent with American nationalism including separatism.
