A VDARE.COM reader attempted to comfort me recently in an email that I think highlights a common misconception.

As a female graduate student at a Catholic university, she is expected to present a “cultural autobiography” to her class - a multicultural brainwashing technique I wrote about recently. She plans on fighting back by “deconstructing the myth that only today’s minorities were oppressed” by citing the ways in which her Italian immigrant grandparents were oppressed at the turn of the century.

Among other things, she says that Sicilians in Louisiana were called “niggers,” that Italians were turned away from jobs, and that in 1922, when a Negro man was accused of raping a white woman and his defense was that she wasn’t white, she was Italian, the judge agreed and the case was dismissed (Rollins v Alabama).

Understandable - but I don’t think this type of response is the best way to combat discrimination-obsessed academics.

It’s implicitly siding with the liberals. Feeding into the multiculturalists’ mentality – comparing scars inflicted by “society’ – only promotes their goal of more and more multicultural and diversity requirements.

Pointing out liberal hypocrisy is fun. But this particular case warrants careful assessment of the potential consequences.

If we’re aiming for the abolition of hyphenated Americans, then showing that we aren’t actually assimilated either (I’m Italian – not white. I’m Jewish – not white. I’m [anything] – not white) is counterproductive.

I think my VDARE.COM reader would do better by presenting a purely American culture – if only to prove that one exists.