BY: DAIMAN TEER for THE SIMPLETON STAR
There is an old expression that people ought to be careful what they wish for because sometimes they actually get it. This is one of those times. For years, America’s progressive political establishment has preached the gospel of multiculturalism, diversity, inclusion and the wonderful idea that America should welcome people from every corner of the planet and allow them to bring their cultures, religions and traditions with them.
Wonderful. Sounds beautiful.
There is only one small problem: sometimes those cultures and religions don’t agree with you.
Consider Hamtramck, Michigan. In 2023, the city’s all-Muslim City Council unanimously approved a resolution prohibiting religious, ethnic, racial, political and sexual-orientation group flags from being flown on city property. That meant the Pride flag came down. The resolution permitted the American flag, Michigan’s flag, the Hamtramck flag, the POW/MIA flag and flags representing nations connected to the city’s international population. Residents and businesses remained free to fly whatever flags they wanted on their own property.
Can you say SHARIA LAW?
Now here is where things become deliciously awkward for the people who spent years – the 25 years since the World Trade Center buildings cam crashing to the ground – telling the rest of us that multiculturalism was the answer to America’s problems.
Hamtramck had become a celebrated example of that very multicultural dream. The city became nationally famous for electing an all-Muslim City Council, and many liberals celebrated the development as evidence of American inclusion and diversity. The Guardian reported at the time that some liberal residents who had celebrated that political transformation were now experiencing what one person described as a “sense of betrayal.”
Well, welcome to the real world.
Multiculturalism doesn’t come with a little instruction manual that says, “You may bring your culture to America, provided your culture eventually agrees with mine.” Diversity means diversity. It means that different people are going to have different beliefs, different customs, different religious convictions and different ideas about what is morally acceptable. You cannot spend twenty years lecturing conservative Christians about tolerance and then suddenly discover that tolerance has become unacceptable when the people you’re tolerating disagree with you.
That’s the part nobody wants to talk about.
For years, we were told that America should become more diverse because diversity would enrich the country. We were told that immigration would introduce Americans to different cultures and perspectives. We were told that religious diversity was something to celebrate. We were told that people who had different backgrounds should be welcomed and respected rather than expected to assimilate completely into some supposedly superior American culture.
Fine.
Then Hamtramck showed everybody what that principle actually looks like when the people involved have political power and their religious beliefs aren’t compatible with progressive social politics.
Suddenly the multicultural utopia got a little uncomfortable.
The Hamtramck council did not, technically, pass a resolution saying, “We hate gay people and therefore the Pride flag is forbidden.” The actual resolution was framed as governmental neutrality and prohibited a broad category of religious, ethnic, racial, political and sexual-orientation flags. Council members argued that government property should not become a battlefield for competing identity groups and that private citizens remained free to display Pride flags on their own property.
You can disagree with that policy. I certainly don’t think government should get a free pass simply because somebody calls a policy “neutrality.” But that isn’t the point of this column. The point is the spectacular collision between progressive multiculturalism and the actual cultures that multiculturalism produces.
Because the people who celebrated the arrival of a Muslim political majority in Hamtramck apparently expected the new political culture to behave exactly like the progressive political culture that had welcomed it. Wait’ll they start throwing the gay ones off the tallest building in this godforsaken dump.
That’s not diversity.
That’s assimilation with better public relations.
And here is the question nobody seems to want to answer: If you believe different cultures deserve representation and political participation, what happens when those cultures democratically choose policies you hate?
Do you suddenly decide that diversity has gone too far?
Do you decide that multiculturalism is wonderful until Muslims become socially conservative?
Do you celebrate religious freedom until someone else’s religion produces a belief you find offensive?
Or do you actually believe the principle you spent all those years preaching?
Because there is no legitimate version of multiculturalism that says, “Everyone is welcome as long as everyone eventually thinks like us.”
That isn’t multiculturalism. That’s ideological colonialism.
And the irony becomes even richer when you look at what happened after the flag resolution. LGBTQ activists and supporters protested. The controversy became national news. A lawsuit followed, alleging that the city’s restrictions violated the First Amendment. The legal dispute eventually made its way through federal court, which is another reminder that this was never simply a matter of somebody taking down a piece of colorful fabric. It became a constitutional fight over government speech and the use of public property.
But underneath all of that is something much more interesting: America got exactly what its multicultural experiment promised to deliver.
It got a city in which different groups compete for political influence. It got immigrants who became citizens, voted, organized, won elections and exercised political power. It got a Muslim-majority city government making decisions based partly on values that are rooted in its religious and cultural worldview.
That’s democracy.
You don’t have to like the result. You don’t have to agree with the council. You don’t have to like the decision to prohibit Pride flags from city property.
But if you believe in democracy, you don’t get to demand that every newly empowered group behave exactly the way you want them to behave.
You wanted diversity.
You got diversity.
And diversity, as it turns out, is not a buffet where you get to select only the parts you find delicious.
That is the lesson of Hamtramck, and it is a lesson that progressives desperately need to learn. You cannot spend decades telling Americans that their country should become more multicultural and then act shocked when the cultures you invited to participate actually participate. You cannot preach tolerance and then discover that tolerance becomes much harder when somebody else’s deeply held beliefs collide with your own.
Maybe the people of Hamtramck will change their minds someday. Maybe the courts will ultimately determine that the city’s policy violated constitutional protections. Maybe the political winds will shift again and the Pride flag will return to city property.
That’s democracy, too.
But the next time somebody tells me that multiculturalism is wonderful because everyone brings his own values and traditions to America, I am going to remind him of Hamtramck.
Be careful what you wish for — especially if you a white liberal who votes like a moron. You just might get it.
THE BIBLE VERSE
“For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” — Galatians 6:7
WHY I CHOSE THIS VERSE
I chose this verse because Hamtramck is almost a perfect political illustration of it. For years, the American progressive movement planted the seeds of multiculturalism, diversity and unrestricted cultural pluralism. It told Americans that different peoples and religions should be welcomed, respected and given a place at the table. Then, in Hamtramck, one of those communities sat down at the table, won elections and exercised political power according to its own beliefs.
Suddenly, some of the people who had spent years celebrating multiculturalism discovered that they didn’t particularly like the culture that had arrived.
That is the harvest.
The lesson isn’t that Muslims are bad or that multiculturalism is inherently evil. The lesson is that principles have consequences. If you genuinely believe in religious diversity and democratic participation, you have to accept that people with religious beliefs different from yours are going to exercise their rights, vote their consciences and sometimes win.
You cannot demand diversity and then become furious when diversity refuses to behave.
A PRAYER FOR AMERICA
Lord, give us the wisdom to understand the principles we proclaim before we impose them upon the country. Give us the courage to defend freedom even when the people exercising that freedom disagree with us, and give us the humility to recognize that democracy does not promise us the results we want.
Help Americans remember that tolerance is not merely tolerating people who already agree with us. Help us preserve the freedom to worship, speak, vote and live according to conscience, while remembering that our neighbors possess those same freedoms.
And Lord, when our politicians tell us that some grand social experiment will make everything better, give us enough common sense to ask the obvious question:
“And what happens if it doesn’t?”
Because sometimes the answer is Hamtramck.
Amen.
