7 - Imaging and deconstructing the multicultural nation in the 1990s

Summary

In the wake of the various political movements of the 1960s and 1970s such as the civil rights, Black Power, Red Power (AIM), Chicano, anti-Vietnam War, feminist, gay and lesbian movements, the period of the late 1970s and 1980s emphasized a preoccupation with individual rather than collective concerns. While the publication of Alex Haley's Roots in 1976 and its broadcast on television in 1977 prompted an investigation into cultural origins and ethnic identities, celebrating difference, the era of the Reagan Presidency of the 1980s became known as the “me” generation. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a considerable thaw occurred in geopolitics with Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika from 1985, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain in 1989, the dismantling of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the end of the Cold War. Likewise, the emphasis on separatist and essentialist political and cultural identities moderated, as multiculturalism became a catchword in society. Jesse Jackson, who ran for President in 1984 and 1988, helped stimulate multicultural alliances and formed the National Rainbow Coalition in 1986 that aimed to unite various groups in American society under one umbrella, such as racial minorities (people of color), gays, the poor, peace activists, and environmentalists. From the late 1980s, rather than unity or separatism, activists celebrated diversity and multiculturalism as a strategy of resistance and progressive change. Political correctness (p.c.) entered the discourse, supporting affirmative action and “hate speech” regulations, and the politics of difference.