Dad 9: Concerns of Fragmentation, 1981

By Dr. C.E.S. copyright © All rights reserved. Originally published Jan. 9, 1981; The Michigan Chronicle.

(Note: Eric Sevareid was an NBC News commentator.)

Each passing day brings another reminder of societal tendencies which form an alarming pattern of retrogressive social change. If continued to its abominable conclusion, this trend would mock the dream made famous by our nation’s founding fathers.

That dream is clearly reflected in the Declaration of Independence which stresses the beliefs that “All men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Speaking to the dream’s fulfillment, the Preamble to the Constitution says “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution.”

Thoughts of these historic documents were brought to mind by Eric Sevareid’s recent statement that he thought “the big story of the 1980s will be the threatened fragmentation of an increasingly vulnerable American society – particularly with the pressure on it from the fast-growing Spanish-speaking segment.”

Behind the distinguished commentator’s concern, of course, is his perception of the casual factors which have brought about this ominous situation with its growing emphasis on racial and cultural differences within the U.S. This differs sharply from the social climate which once warmed a nation’s melting pot.

There are those who wonder if America will ever get back on the road to righteousness which was marked so clearly on the constitutional map. Some have expressed fear that strains from today’s divisive tendencies will endanger the Union as did the Civil War.

It’s somewhat heartening to know that optimism has not gone out of style. Among those who are less fearful is Eleanor Holmes Norton, Chairwoman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, who says, “We are not at the danger point. What we are seeing is part of the activism only a very rich and secure society can afford.”

But the optimists are far outnumbered by those who insist that, for many groups of foreign born Americans, the nationalization process has been accompanied by an increasingly visible and vicious tendency towards intergroup hostility, a process called “Balkanization.”

Use of that term is credited to Phillip Perlmutter, Director of the Jewish Community Council of Metropolitan Boston. It clearly indicates the tone and general nature of Perlmutter’s condemnatory article which appeared last September in an issue of Commentary Magazine.

In one sentence, the author summarizes his dim view of things to come: “As this Balkanization of America comes to pass, our nation will be plagued with all the suspicions, resentments and conflicts which today characterize so many parts of Europe, Asia and Africa.”

Early American awareness of the ever present danger of divisiveness and its never ending appeal in a nation which from the very beginning has been marked by cultural differences, led to the constitutional safeguards already quoted.

Today, as an anxious nation takes another stumbling step into an uncertain future, those safety measures face their most difficult test since 1776. And Black Americans stand to lose most in a breakdown of constitutional sureties.

Thoughts of that loss stem less from the still limited advantages currently enjoyed by Blacks than from the possibility of drastic setbacks as the divisiveness worsens. What’s happening was described recently by the Christian Science Monitor as “the splintering of America.”

But, as the outlook becomes gloomier, hopeful voices become all the more welcome. A strong voice of hope was raised by Harvard Professor Martin Kilson, a Black man who bases his faith and confidence for a brighter future on what he calls “the great rejuvenative qualities of American democracy.”